


Handlebars

by calico134340



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Blow Jobs, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Dubious Consent, Hate to Love, M/M, Partnership, Poisoning, Sadism, Self-Hatred, Strength Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:31:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 35,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18375395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico134340/pseuds/calico134340
Summary: When a brutal crime draws attention to a whole new string of vampires, Izaya thinks working with Shizuo would be as spellbinding as it was hard-bitten. He learns that whichever first-eyed fascination could lead to a calamity the hard way.





	1. Moonlight

* * *

 

It’s the beating of her heart that throbs in her eardrums when she runs; the break of her rasping that chills around her lungs when the inhales are drugged by the toxic punchline of the colder-tale at night. It’s wintry and raining, her footfalls grant the splash of puddles in her wake that stain her leather boots to wet around her toes and strikes her ankles to protest at every sharp step colliding, stumbled on the rocks. It’s hard to run with the faded coherency in her limbs and the uncontrollable fear craved in her rationality and when she stumbles over her dress she feels the material bubbling with rain water and forcing her to a clumsy fall barely attenuated by her hands when she scratched them to blood on the ground. She gasps in pain at the slash on her knee while the blood is dissolved within raindrops and the waves of falling flows on her clothes but there’s a blow of air in her back and the bang of a sword cutting the resistance of stones and wheezing the air to slash the raindrops with one swing; it screams in her bones to arch and hobble over her feet with the tension stretched over the boundaries and the terror that pulses her veins under dirtied skin and when she takes the first strokes forward and bruises her arm to scrape the flesh off she turns the corner to the sight of the village sleeping deprived in the quiet of the night.

 

She nearly screams of joy, forces her muscles to lounge for the familiar area with the pressure thumping that blocks the sadistic laugh convulsing from her back like the tremor of a machine-gun. Her knuckles stab the air in preparation for the crash of wooden doors and when she smashes on the surface with full-force, she knocks and kicks and screams; the sound of her terrified-inducted desperation highly raised to the blinding moonlight. _“Open up!! Open, I’m begin you!! It’s coming!”_

 

She shouldn’t have said that; nobody is going to answer to her call now, no one would swing their doors to welcome a stupid girl in their houses and grant their lives to save her. The side of the other wall is quiet, no sound that’ll hint the presence of _human beings_ still living in the houses and she moves from a door to another to slam her fist on the wood and squirm the doorknob in her hold to try and open it firsthandly but the homes are locked and the windows are shut and when she swings her heels to fall back on the muddy ground, the vampire is standing barely ten feet away with a smile red on the edges and stretched along its cheeks. She can see the flames of reddish glows streaming from the eyes and the way the lashes dig deep over the messy hairlines to shadow its face in the already darkened night; there’s a sword held tight in hand, stained with dried blood and the remains of skin too sticky and warm to fall from the blade in maybe decades--it screams and her back jolts on the concrete wall when she tries to slide on it and sprint in a blindness and pain-thumbing run; the vampire shouts--or laughs--and throws the sword to cut on her arm and slash the flesh to an open wound as she jerks her elbow on the cold support in her back and urges the blade to skim over to her leg and stab through her muscle. She cries in pain when her hands grab shakily around her bloodied flesh, slides down on the wall to cut the full-throated screeches which die out the moment that cold fingers push at her windpipe and slam her head harshly on the wall once, _twice--_ laughing heard as the offering of background melody drawn in by the callous pleasure the vampire exchanges with every blow. Her ears are ringing and when she feels the fingers loosen from her throat she can barely make out the individual colors around herself; she wheezes out a breath as she smells the rain in the atmosphere and the coldness refreshing of the water-drops hitting her face with gently touches but the fingers came back nonetheless and scrape the nails in her scalp when she’s pulled to hit the ground face-down.

 

She doesn’t cry; isn’t sure if she can do any of the sort, just lie down to feel the painful spasms spread in her body and clench at her blood vessels and when she turns her head to at least try and catch the glimpse of moonlight once again before she can see nothing more, she turns to the weight of eyes widened staring at her face and a tongue licking the tops of pointed canines. The vampire moves its lips--it could be shouting or just whispering or not producing a sound at all--and shapes the words with its tongue as it bounces under the mouth to press flushed on the bottom-lip. _“Love, love, blood, strength love”_ it’s what she can decipher--words thrown with no reason or coherency that cut through her vision faster than a knife through paper. She lifts her fingers to grope at the stilled fibers of grass and the twitch seems to dislocate the restrain in the vampire’s bones as she sees it hovering like a shadow to lunge brutally over her neck. It’s the artery the first one that’s stabbed--the blood gushes from her neck and she feels more than hears the pressure of her pulse knocking in her brain. She senses the paleness in her cheeks, the convulsing jerks in her chest and the tremor of her heart beating it’s last forceful thumps even along her fingertips and then it all stops, the squirming gives way to stillness and her vision is clouded by the darkness of black hair stuck in her eyes.

 

The night is still screaming and the vampire keeps laughing over the corpse but she blocks the sounds faster than the humming of her heart beating in the telltale of sorrow.

 


	2. Play-game

* * *

 

Izaya hates his job.

 

It’s not the implication of danger that curls his toes and strikes his blood to chillness; he’s been flirting with the borderlines of dying for longer than he can remember, the shape of adrenaline craved deeply in his flow of vessels that he can easily _feel_ it when it pickles from inside at the imminent risk of a clawed hand swung in the air before him. He never expected to like this sort of job anyways; it doesn’t add up to his personal pleasures, doesn’t cross the line to twist his hands around the human mind he craved for always to shape in the giveaway of comprehension, it doesn’t allow him to stand in the shadows and blend though the crowds to view it firsthand and track the shifting of his beloved subclasses thoughts under the pressure of a life lived in darkness and terror. Instead of amusing from the side-lines, Izaya stepped over the peril with the force of his footfalls pressing its shape to crack it underfoot and bent it so it’ll stick into his heels.

 

He never liked vampires--nobody liked vampires; the brutal and blood-lusting creatures that squirmed their ways in the outskirts of town or in the heart of a lonely and vulnerable village. It never scared him, as much as death never chased out to be a forgotten thought in his subconscious, but the sight of dead humans irked him rougher than anything else could ever do. And it would’ve been alright, if his job constructed only in killing the monsters and twist their canines out from their gums and paralyze their bodies to stillness, slashing through the flesh easily to rip it apart so it would never revive, but it wasn’t only like this. To get hold of the vampire lead, you must start from the head-cause.

 

“It’s deeper than normal.” Izaya says from his hovering arch over the corpse guiding his fingers to trail over the supposed bite marks that slashed the neck entirely. There’s no shape of teeth in the structure of her skin, the wound big enough to tore the bone all the way to the base of the crushed maxillary. “This can’t even be called a _bite_ anymore.”

 

“Nebula gets overly sadistic nowadays.” Kadota growls as he writes over his notebook the exhaustive description of the killing. Izaya doesn’t bother to write it himself; there’s always something better to do, to _see_ rather than imprint the murder on a sheet of paper, and Kadota always liked it--a sweet deprivation from the sights they always stumble upon to imagine as if he writes a novel, not a police report.

 

“Or overly hungry.” he guesses as he strengthen from his position to flex his knees and skip his heels over the still-muddy road. “Take it to Shinra, I’ll visit him tomorrow and ask if he sees anything out of ordinary.” he gestures to the two new-comers taking in notes of their beginner work with widely open attention directed to every word Izaya would articulate from his mouth. They nod eagerly and push their notebooks in their back pockets to reach over the corpse and lift it bodily from the ground; their faces grimaces at the smell, the girl shuts her eyes tightly as the boy maneuvers the limbs to steadiness and takes the lead to the carriage.

 

“Could you at least _try_ not being an asshole for once?” Kadota sighs as he types in the last lines of his work. “They’re just kids, give them a break.”

 

“If they’re just kids, they shouldn’t be involved in vampire hunting.” he responds though it’s tighter than he expected and when Kadota shifts his head to follow the vision-line of the other, Izaya’s eyes sparkle in black as any colors are swallowed by the intensity of his hair over the up-curve of his lashes.

 

“ _You_ didn’t want to be.” he snaps when he shuts his book with the force to crack the silence from between and when he moves is to hunch his shoulders and drop the weight of his black notes in the pit of his leather bag. “Not everyone chooses this because they think it’s _fun_.”

 

“I never said I do.” he follows when Kadota takes the first longer steps to his separate carriage and pulls the handles with a vigor that resonated in the way it’s hinges protested as they rubbed on wood and scratched its surface. “Careful with that Dotachin.” he purrs as he watches him swing his leg over the stairs to reach inside. “You don’t want to damage that, Togusa would've been _very_ angry.”

 

He could now clearly shape the knot of veins from his forehead under the shady dark beanie as the glow of early sunlight warms the skin to a contrast of violet and hazel; Kadota turns on his heels to brace a fist tight against the wooden door and stare pointedly in the shadows from his eyes. “You know, I’ve always thought you are worse than those shit-faced vampires.” he blurts out just as he twists the door to slam it right into place and block himself from his piercing glare.

 

Izaya stands as the carriage is put into motion and the pressure of its wheels dig into the mud to leave sharp traces in their wake; he still smiles, only the ghost of it and shaky as he forces his muscles to contract along their outlines. “It’s just the way it’s played.” he whispers for his ears and when the sound knocks in his eardrums, the smile crumbles to a shapeless curve and his feet move to skip over themselves and dance their way to his own wagon.

 

It's quieter this way, but Izaya often loathed loneliness. 


	3. Fascination

* * *

 

“Are you sure?” Izaya asks as he twirls the spoon in the makeshift of his coffee cream that dissolved into the bitter liquid within the coldness emerging from the base of the cup. He rests his head over the couch to view from under lashes at Shinra that skips in his way to gather around the files from the table. They’re all messily written, scrapped with black ink to stain the sheets in order to offer information which the doctor hardly cares for. “It might’ve been just a hungry subject.”

 

“Positive.” Shinra snaps as he folds the papers in one pile and stretches to reach over his own cup to blow off the steam. “Celty is certain of it too. That’s not Nebula.”

 

“How could she be so sure, its not as if she knows anything about vampires.” he mocks and Shinra burst the sharp inhale on his nostrils while the heat warmed his chords.

 

“Of course not, Celty is a Dullahan.” he says as if explaining her existence to Izaya, his voice toned with the fondness of appreciation when he claps his hands over the table. “But Nebula never uses blades, do they?”

 

“Blades? You mean knifes? That can’t be a murder, Shinra, nobody wants to deal with criminals right now.” Izaya knows that any ordinary crime is overlooked around the villages, every villager seeking protection exclusively against vampires; crimes weren’t a matter for the police, humanity dealt with that alone.

 

“No, the killer was definitely a vampire, only maybe if we’re facing a cannibal. But that’s hardly possible; the flesh was ripped off the bones. It’s too brutal for everything Nebula does.” Shinra says as he turns around on his chair to place the scalpels and arsenic bottles in the drawers. It’s a small office and Izaya realizes how much Shinra hides in his level-down basement; aside from the loyally love-struck Dullahan. Shinra had always been fascinated with the vampires, as much as he would beg for their survival just so he could further up his own researches. Izaya never emphasized with the idea, but he wasn’t one to shatter other’s ideologies. “It’s all different, even the scent.”

 

He jerks at the word; it’s not something commonly known by humans; vampires spread their scent in a distinguished trace to follow the pattern of human-blood and Izaya knew that various parts from their bodies hidden in order under the weight of his footfalls could never give out such characteristics to shape the knowledge of every individual vampire outside the local vampire-gang. It’s his arm that moves first--to enclose the fingers around the mug in a last ascension to the rim of his lips--but his elbow slides on the leather back and pushes into the couch to produce aloud the rustle of plastic. Shinra hums undisturbed as he checks the papers one last time, his head leaned into the closer approach to the table and his shoulders hunched to shut out any possible distraction and when Izaya turns, he pulls the cushion with his fingertips and shifts it to the edge. There are blood bags clumsily forced into the outlines craved in the couch, two bags fully loaded and blood-filled and when he skims through he can clearly see the package of light cigarettes under it; the ‘Vamps’ initials clearly shaped on the corners and Izaya draws his lips into a darkening smile. “Tell me Shinra...” he tilts while his fingers fumble with the package to force it open “How do you know about the scent?” and Shinra stops immediately, his shoulders shake visibly when he turns his head to gaze over to his direction as Izaya’s smile widens with the giveaway of fear in Shinra’s eyes. “I wasn’t aware you’ve started smoking.”

 

Shinra stumbles over his feet when he stands up. “ _Vamps_ even! You shouldn’t experience it on yourself, you know? What if you get addicted to the _scent_ of blood, huh?” and the package is forcefully grasped from his clenched fist as Shinra throws it in the further back of the room.

 

He’s trembling, but Izaya can clearly see it’s from excitement, not fear and when Shinra speaks it flows the layers of happiness throughout his windpipe to knock any mockery Izaya still had reserved for him. “It’s not me!” he shouts and as he grips around Izaya’s wrist to nudge him on his feet: “Come, you’ve got to see this!” and Izaya already knows what _this_ must be.

 

The stairs to the basement are risky--being clearly stepped on more than their weight could bear and shaking with every collision of their footsteps, but Shinra moves with ease and velocity that the resistance is barely felt; and Izaya digs his heels with the same graceful stability so when they reach the door it’s faster than Izaya could so much as had the span of time to grasp around his movements and steady his legs so he won’t stumble over the open space provided by the smashing of the door into the opposite wall. “Look!” Shinra shouts in his ear when Izaya grimaces from the close proximity and when he looks over to the dim-lit chamber, he sees the shape of a body laid on the floor. He’s bleeding, but every wound is patched up and cleaned, his blond hair sticks over his cheeks and into his eyes to convulse them in a dark shady light. Izaya hears him groan when the door is pushed open, his muscles clearly tensed to form the tightness of fists in his lap and when he moves to brush his hair with a jerk of his head, Izaya trails the wrinkles with his own vision, the pale lips of the other pursed into the offering of annoyance and when he breathes, Izaya sees the canines sticking out and curve on the bottom lip.

 

Izaya was never fascinated by the vampire's existence, but seeing the frustration leaking in every stroke of anger the other provided, Izaya realized there was always a time for everything.

 


	4. Inflict

* * *

 

Izaya knows that vampires are cold-hearted, but more commonly, they shape their viciousness to pour recklessly over the humanity and claim the vulnerability the humans offer with the pressure of their tempting words or glimmering eyes. _He_ was different; this vampire shown only the complete frustration in the tremor of his fists and the shake of his shoulders and when he rasped out in the deepest voice, Izaya’s breath knocked out from his lungs with the premonition of adrenaline slipping through himself. “Shinra, what’s this?” the vampire asks--or threatens, as his tonality would seem to--but he never wavers his gaze from the direct contact Izaya provides and when he moves is to slam his fist on the table next to him and clench his teeth to scrape his canines deeper in his soft lip. “You brought a fucking _hunter_ , are you insane?!”

 

“It’s always nice to meet new vampires.” Izaya says before Shinra could voice his reasoning to the other and at the sound of his voice, the vampire convulses and pushes his spine to bruise on the wall in the back; his eyes are dark, hazel, and Izaya can’t look away even for a second--his eyes fire the anger and stab through his soul with such force that he feels his ribcage shatter and hears the skips of his heart when the adrenaline settles inside him. “What are _you_ doing in here though, I’m pretty sure you’re not the type to give in so easily being experimented on.”

 

“I would never!” Shinra gasps in his back and advances further to close his hand around his shoulder; the vampire shakes under his hold and his muscles are clearly shaped in knots as he forces himself to relax under the urge to swing his fist into the scientist’s cheekbones. “Celty found him bleeding and I couldn’t reject her desperate plea to help him survive!”

 

“She wasn’t desperate.” the vampire groans as he swipes his hand to smack Shinra’s fingers off his skin. “And I wasn’t _dying_ , you just wanted to take a look at my wounds.”

 

“They were truly interesting, is your skin usually that hard or it’s just a vampire quality?” he asks and leans on his knees to catch the vampire’s harsh gaze with his own joyful intensity.

 

The vampire shrugged the weight in his shoulders and shifts his head to glare at Izaya again. When he flexes his knees, he leans on his hand to catch resistance and straighten on the flat wall. “Who is he?” he asks pointing to his chest and Izaya wheezes the air through his nose as he takes a few steps further to reach in the area around the other.

 

“I’m Orihara Izaya.” he says and angles his hand in the space between to offer the softance of his palm to the other. The vampire narrows his eyes as he looks down to it, his mouth crests with the lines of annoyance to clench harder on his teeth so the crumble would reach his earshot in a clear resonance. “Pleasure making acquaintance with you. “

 

“Fuck off.” the other says just as Shinra rumbles in their back; “It’s okay Shizuo, he won’t send you in unless you killed anyone.” Shinra says and the vampire turns sharply at the sound of his name. His muscles relax even though his hands clench remotely in fists but he sighs and when he swings his arm is to close his fingers around Izaya’s with a strength powerful enough to crush his articulations instead of a blow through the ribs. “Heiwajima.” he offers with disinterest as his eyes catch the outlines of his boots avoiding the straight stare the other averts to his bleached hair.

 

“I heard something about a different scent.” Izaya tilts and feels the fingers in his skin curl to leave the nails scraping on his flesh. He’s sure the vampire senses the blood dripping from under his fingertips, but Izaya doesn’t mind any of it himself and draws his hand to his chest to send the trace of Shizuo’s nails along his wrist and to the knuckles in a red line imprinted around it. “Do you mind to elaborate that for me?”

 

“I’m not going to help you hunt another vampire.” Shizuo says and drops his hand to his side.

 

“You might not want to, but I’m the one that could also take you over to the station.” Izaya purrs and when he fishes the tranquilizer from his pocket, Shizuo stares at it with his eyes entirely black and his fists form the strain of anger bubbling in his veins. “Whichever you prefer; hanging or ripping?”

 

Shizuo clicked his tongue, his hand urged for the giveaway of Izaya’s neck but stopped mid-way as Shinra said _‘He’d actually do it.’_ and dropped his arm to brush hard on his side. When he looked into his crimson eyes, Izaya knew the other shaped his anger to the reciprocity of hate. “Alright.” he rasps as he turns on his heels to hunch in his previous position and Izaya can’t resist the smile creeping on his mouth from the sound of it thumping in his own eardrums.

 

It’s already night-time when Izaya drops over to Kadota’s desk and demands the planning for his hunting trip. Kadota is still pissed over seeing him, his usual gently smile washing off entirely at the sight of his own mocking signature and when Izaya brushes his fingertips over the surface of his desk, Kadota groans and pushes the files aside to glare at him directly and fully diverting his annoyance through his stare. “You can’t do that, nobody signed up yet.”

 

“I know, that’s why I’m doing it right now.”

 

“You’re not telling me you’re going by _yourself_.” Kadota groans as he pushes the pen inside the cracks of the wood and clenches his teeth to crumble under his gums. “That’s a suicide attempt.”

 

“Maybe I want to see how it is; always test your limits, right?” he asks, but it passes through as a completely rhetorical question when Kadota shrugs and twitches his fingers around the pen before crushing the writing tool on the white paper hard as to crumble the sheet with every new character.

 

“Try and come back in one piece.” Kadota says more for the half-politeness of it though Izaya knows already that working under the forced protection of a vampire couldn’t possibly risk any broken bones; and if he fails and Shizuo refuses to track down the trail of vampire-scent, he at least has something better to bring under the intensity of the spotlight.

 


	5. Constrain

* * *

 

Shizuo never liked being helped. It’s not something he needs; his skin is harder than normally vampires and his resistance is overly the top, even if he’s a born vampire. The fights are an usual habit, he knows the others would swing their blows in his direction because of his unnatural strength to feel the strain of his muscles cursing through their own knuckles; it’s nearly a sort of sadistic play, testing their limits and screeching his skin until their hands would be bent with the force of his fist or their knees would buckle under their weight at a blow through the head. He does get hurt though, it’s normal and it happens in every fight, either if it’s only the fading scar of a claw on his jaw or the cracked bone in his leg, but he can handle the pain with his high tolerance and push his way further into the forests to blend through the trees and remain unnoticed for as long as he can overcome it. Celty always dejected the idea, often picking him bodily with the strive of her shadows and carrying him to Shinra even if his wounds are always fast-healed and lack the stream of bloodshed. Shinra doesn’t complain; he’s always overjoyed by his presence and keeps the flow of questions to smack Shizuo over his patience but its nice having people around him, not fearing the course of his strength or challenging the sharp-turn of a bloody fight.

 

Shizuo thought about the implications of this half-friendship he craved along the years; being helped by a human inside the basement of a police doctor house in the capital was never something to pass through as _safe_ but Shinra promised on his own life he’d never slip a word to the hunters, yet Shizuo should’ve known better than to listen to the clearly-unbalanced human.

 

He hated Izaya, and it wasn’t even a day since he caught the fist glance of his features. There was something in the way Izaya spoke--the tilt of his humming through the words or the cutting edge of his lips when he laughed--and in the strokes of his moves, too fast and sharp that surged his blood thumping into a harsh adrenaline. He could kill him, rip his skin off his neck or crack his spine with the force of his kick, but Shizuo knew it’ll be a clear giveaway to his existence for the endlessly numbers of hunters around the town. He sucked in his anger to only tremble through his fists and strain his muscles to push harder the footfalls as he landed them on cold ground and Izaya is skipping over his steps through the woods and purring his tone in an annoyingly tune that scrapes his hearing and loathes his anger as he traces with his imaginary vision the squeeze he could easily apply on the slim and vulnerable neck-line.

 

The church takes shape from between the trees, its high and dark roof risen higher in the darkening night and Shizuo feels the first pickles of uneasiness when Izaya pivots his heels harder into the surface to trace the direct line through the church grounds. Shizuo gropes around his elbow as he forces himself to fall in rhythm with Izaya’s wake and his fingers hold firmly the pale flesh to leave the imprint of fingertips bruising on the curve of the bone. _“At church?_ ” he snaps when Izaya stumbles over his mid-way step to turn and look at Shizuo from under the protection of dark hair-edges. “I can’t sleep in a _church_.”

 

“Are you going to dissolve or something?” Izaya asks with the smallest hint of interest when Shizuo sized his clenched hand to hear the blood under it pulsing with fanatic speed. “It’s only one night, I’m sure no one would figure you out to burn you on a stick.”

 

“How do you expect me to walk around that holy water and not burn my fucking skin, Izaya?” Shizuo asks and tugs forcefully at his arm to twist his footing and face him fully not only from peripheral attention; Izaya let’s himself being pulled with not even a strain in his muscles and when he stumbles is to grab the shirt front of Shizuo’s vest in his fingers and tug at the hem just below the scrappy bowtie.

 

“Churches aren’t _soaking_ in holy water.” he offers in annoyance and the pull of his hand smacks Shizuo’s fingers off from his skin with the still lingering thump blended in his fingertips. “You’ll be fine if you keep that mouth shut.” and he’s walking again, further without looking back and Shizuo forces his feet to move in an angry pursuit until the shape of a heavily clothed nun emerges from inside the closed construction and Shizuo shudders at the sight to roll his eyes and spit underfoot.

 

“God be with you and end our suffering.” the nun says in a form closer to a salute to which Izaya nods angling his head over the shoulder to smirk fully in his direction and Shizuo nearly shouts at him when he turns and encircles his arm around the round shoulders of the elderly woman. “We’d be grateful if you’d take us directly to our rooms; we must flee from here the first thing in the morning.” he says as the nun nods eagerly and opens the doors wide for them to pass through. Shizuo stands in front, his eyes looking into and measuring the darkness barely lit by flaming candles and smells the distinct aroma of holiness trapped inside the closed walls. Izaya says something to the woman, but he can’t decipher anything from the ringing in his ears and the flow of anger and frustration coursing through him so when Izaya grabs his hand and digs his nails into his wrist Shizuo hisses--too close to an open-mouthed sound--and steps over the threshold with a force that shakes the wood underneath.

 

He misses the sharp stare that the nun sends his way, the barely-there intake of air and the shaky hand she guides to her mouth as her eyes quiver over his advancing strikes, but he’s too paralyzed by the harshness of his anger to even acknowledge the curse Izaya bursts out under his breath as he falls in the same line with himself.

 


	6. Hound

* * *

 

Shizuo doesn’t sleep.

 

It’s not that his frustration copes every inch in his brain to strangle itself around his cells, not that he constantly thinks about the various ways he could twist Izaya’s bones with the pressure of his own fists; Izaya is sleeping in the next room, and the proximity built by the thin walls is hardly enough to block the smallest sounds Izaya made while turning in the bed or shifting his blanket off of his heating body. It’s the place he’s supposed to sleep in, the church Izaya forces him to occupy with offhand mockery and the swing of his hunter badge, so when Shizuo draws the blanket over him and pushes the cushion to his ears, he knows he’s only hiding himself from the reality he alone inflected--if only he left Shinra’s place in the span of a few hours as his wounds were cleaned like always, maybe then he’d be sleeping on the cold and wet grass under the stare of a starless night instead of between malodorous soaked walls. Izaya stumbles in his room when the first ray of sun paints above the dark sky with the usual glimmer in his eyes and the sharpness in his voice and when Shizuo pushes himself off the bed and into the span of his reaching area, Izaya tiptoes in the back to graze his spine on the wall and stare in his own eyes from the darkly corridor. “You’ve slept well?”

 

“Fuck off.” Shizuo says in response and drags his feet on the concrete.

 

He doesn’t bother staying when Izaya thanks the priest; he’s too angry to urge his mouth closed to hide the clench of his teeth above his lip--he hunches his shoulders and flexes his fist around the cigarettes and when he hears distant footfalls he’s turning to pour over Izaya the curses he’s been holding and the blow of hardened knuckles on his high cheekbone, but the scent is different and more feminine so when he finally pushes his heels to the rocky ground is to stare confusedly at the one jogging in his direction. It’s the nun, Shizuo realizes first as the shape of her considerate body curves into the shadows barely illuminated; she’s moving with precision and force, a small metallic cross in her right hand and Shizuo nearly hisses at the sight of it. It reaches her earshot--or maybe Shizuo’s glowing eyes directed to her are a clear sign that makes her anger spill over the edges--and when Shizuo raises a hand in precaution, she throws the cross to his shoulder and spits over his boots; her hands are shaking and the distinct veins throb under the skin of her forehead. Her own teeth are clenched over the unstable maxillary that shakes with every breath she takes and Shizuo tries to catch his hand around her arm and push her away when she screams to the top of her lungs and waves her fingers to almost touch the front of his vest; _“You cursed monster, die the most horrible death laid upon your kind, blood-thirsty demons. Burn in Hell! Go to Hell and burn, murder--”_

“I guess that’s enough.” Izaya says as he grabs her shaky arm in the steady clench of his fist and the woman nearly shouts from the sudden shock of the touch. She turns and points the finger to Izaya’s chest and stabs it above his ribcage. “ _You_ , hunter you say? What’re you doing with such monstrosity with you? Are you working fo--”

 

“I would _never_ do such a damned thing!” Izaya shouts in her ear and it helps as the nun calms if only for a moment to stare over her shoulder and into his shady crimson eyes. Izaya looks over her then, into Shizuo’s unwavering glare and smirks, the cutting edge of his lip stretched along his cheek wider and curved until he’s offering the whiten-teeth smile to Shizuo’s obliviousness. “You should know, hunters always love hanging vampires. Personally, I’m used to ripping their skin off their bones, but I’m not going to explain such gruesome facts to an innocent local like yourself.” he tilts and grabs the woman by the shoulders to push her gently on the side as he reaches over and takes Shizuo’s wrist in a crushing squeeze. “My _partner_ gets that a lot, he’s mute you see? His construction doesn’t help at all, children always run when they see him, all this muscle and those creepy eyes, am I right?” he taps on his chest, the sound of it resonating in the stillness and Shizuo can’t control his veins along the arm to crease into a thumping turbulence.

 

“Yeah…” the woman says then and shakes her head to hide any giveaway of her features; “How stupid of me, I’m deeply sorry, may God punish me for what I--yes, I’m awfully sorry, please forgive me.” and with a quick but long bow she turns into the almost-bluish skylines.

 

“That’s one mistake you make, I won’t be so benevolent next time.” Izaya warns when he rips his hand off the coldness of his skin to dig them in the cover of his pockets. “So how are we gonna do this? By smell you said, are you going to _sniff_ the ground from now? I thought you’re a vampire, not a dog.”

 

Shizuo hits his retreating back with his fist--only a faint brush on the curve of his jacket shifting in his wake--but the feeling is exhilarating and the heat in his knuckles loathed for a stronger blow that could lay claim to the arch of a bruising mark on the paleness of Izaya’s skin. “I’m not going to explain our anatomy to you right now.” he groans and takes the lead with a knocking collision in Izaya’s side.

 

“Maybe you’re right.” Izaya sighs in his back as he crushes the fallen dead leaves underfoot to create the crunching sound in an echo to Shizuo’s own stepping. “You should never articulate your thoughts, language is wasted on you.”

 

Shizuo means to twist his fist into Izaya’s face and hear the cartilage of his nose bent under the force, but he swings it to a tree instead, hearing the crack shouting in his ears and vibrating in his bones until the truck falls to the ground and smacks the mocking laugh he still hears like gun-shots in his eardrums. He can scream at Izaya and curse to twist his tongue in a multitude of displeasures, but he knows being stuck with the hunter is only his own fault; at this point onward, he clearly shaped the tormenting idea of being Izaya’s dog.

 


	7. Noxious

* * *

 

“Just let me do it.” Izaya sighs when Shizuo flexes the weight of his fingers to his waist and pulls him in to shape his curves into the extent of his palm. Izaya is warm at the touch, and his skin radiates from under his hold but Shizuo tugs at his skin and sizes his hand to curl deep into it and grope at the higher hipbone. Izaya nearly squirms out of the touch at first, but Shizuo catches his arm with the other hand and squeezes the muscles into the hard giveaway of strength from which Izaya could only hiss at. “Really, I’m _not_ sleeping in the woods.”

 

“And I’m not sleeping in their houses.” Shizuo protests as the other flings his legs to hit on Shizuo’s and taps his boots under the shape of his own. “People aren’t as dumb to not realize what I am!”

 

“Of course they’re not, humans are the most insightful creatures on earth; _you_ though are the dumbest vampire yet, so it’s all on you if they figure you out. And don’t count on me to get you out of it again.” Izaya says just as he swings his feet over the ground to break from the firm hold that Shizuo pushed on his waist--the bruise of violet clearly imprinted on his pale composure--and when he turns is to brush gracefully on the truck of the tree and pivots his way over the house in front. “It’s isolated from the rest of the village, what more do you want?” he asks and his tone shifts into annoyance when he can’t hear Shizuo after him. He turns his head over his shoulder; _“Well?”_ he shouts and narrows his eyes to view from under lashes as his line of mouth crumbles to a grimace of clear, firsthand disgust.

 

“Why are we even doing this?” Shizuo shouts back to Izaya as he takes longer steps to reach him in the perfect circle emitting his usual bitter aroma that stung in his nostrils. “If I can smell it, why don’t we just _follow_ it, this constant stops are pulling us back.”

 

“You can follow it nonstop, some of us need a good sleep and a nutritional meal.”

 

“You know she’s constantly moving, right?” he asks when he passes by him to stare directly at the small house in front.

 

“Who, the vampire? I wasn’t aware it’s a _she_.”

 

“I wasn’t aware I needed to give you anymore information, if I track her route isn’t that enough? “ Shizuo asks as he turns his head over his shoulder and catches Izaya’s eyes with his own in a proximity he didn’t suspected at first that left him nearly breathless as the lure of the crimson blinded him with the force of its building adrenaline. “I don’t want to talk more with you than it's necessary.” he says in a growl as Izaya turns his lips up-curled to smile for himself.

 

“And this conversation is _clearly_ necessary.” he laughs and skips over his feet to press his fingertips on the wooden surface and trace his fingers downwards to clench around a fist on the door as he jerked his wrist to knock forcefully into it, his eyes never leaving Shizuo’s own.

 

The man opens up on instant as if he’s been waiting, his smile is stretched along his face and his brown eyes swam with joyfulness and welcoming. “Hello!” he says to Izaya, then ‘Hello’ again when he sees Shizuo’s advancing silhouette in the back and he pulls the door wider for them to step inside; he’s laughing and when Shizuo steps over the threshold, he can see the family gathered around the table--two little girls and a woman in mid-thirties--smiling and wavering for them both to take a sit. “We’ve heard about the murders, Nebula gets more active than the last two months.” the man says from their back as he takes the furred jacked carefully from Izaya’s arms. “We’ve never imagined you’d billet in our house, but we’re most honored.” he bows, followed by the obedient wife and the clumsily baby-girls and Shizuo feels the sharp beginning of nausea in the pit if his stomach.

 

“We should be the honored ones.” Izaya says as he takes his sit to the table and: “Shizuo, come, don’t stand there like a fool.” as he taps the space right beside himself. Shizuo groans and shifts his body to line on the floor; he flexes his legs in front to rest his aching spine on the cold wall and when he spreads his legs and eases the strain of his knees, Izaya’s arm shifts over his tight and tightens around the circular bone before he shifts his own legs under him and brushes his sides to Shizuo’s to catch the heat on himself.

 

“I have something!” the man screams and runs in the next-door room with a speed that makes his feet scrape on the tiles. “He worked on it for months.” his wife says proudly as she leans over to clean her daughter’s cheek with a handkerchief and when the man returns he’s already blushing faintly on the tip of his round cheekbones and Shizuo feels the smell of it knocking him off his balance. “Holy water wheel!” the man says and drops the object on the table. It’s soaking the wood underneath it, the round circles of metal moving rhythmically and spilling the liquid in spasms. “With time, it can imprint the sense on your front door, and the smell can be sensed from good meters away. It’s for protection, and no vampire can get through, we survived two of those assholes with this big boy.” he taps over the wires with a shining warmth in his eyes and the curve of a proud smile brightening his darker complex. “And that’s not all!” he exclaims when he pushes on his feet to reach over their heads and pull out the weight of a metallic object scraping on the drawer; Shizuo nearly chokes at the smell of his clothes soaked deeply in holy water. “ _This_ I’m very proud of.” he says and looks directly into Izaya’s eyes as the other widened his vision at the razor held firmly in his fists. “It’s made of gold and metal. I haven’t experimented it, but I’m sure it can cut through their hearts or brains easier than anything else. It’s even big enough to fill in your pocket, they won’t even know you carry it! I’ve been researching all my life, I’d be honored if you’d take this to the police and use it wisely, as always!” he sighs when Shizuo leans over to catch the cough in his mouth and hide the giveaway of his canines pointing outside over his lip.

 

Izaya sizes an arm around him; it's supposed to look like comfort, but it’s the sharp warning Shizuo expected and he nearly punched his free blow to his side before a flow of convulsing spasms and coughs blocked his windpipe in a strangling force as his vision blackened and his fingers trembled to arch deeply into the flesh of his cheeks and cover any possible sight from his teeth. “I’m sorry for that.” Izaya sighs in a fake regret washing over his purring to, what Shizuo supposed, were the worrisome stares the others sent in his way; he can feel their eyes burning on his neck-line. “He’s ill with tuberculosis. It happens often, please ignore him for now, I’ll take care of it myself.” and he’s patting his back and grazing his fingers through his scalp in a clear affectionately manner that urges his veins throbbing faster and harsher. “About these though, they’re amazing! I’ll surely take the knife.” he says and then, when Shizuo hears the commotion and the court exchanges of words, he feels Izaya’s breath over his earshot as he purrs lower for his personal hearing. “Wanna hold it?” he asks and Shizuo feels rather than sees the blinding heat of the knife to his face.

 

He jerks from his hold and bangs his head on the table, his eyes stung and burn in the back of his head and his heart beats faster than the storming speed of the hummingbird; Izaya is smirking from his lined-over position and twirls the knife in between his fingers to catch the blade with the bony flexes of his wrist and it’s in that moment Shizuo realizes that Izaya might kill him first.

 


	8. Monster

 

* * *

 _“God damn it.”_ Izaya groans under his breath as Shizuo spasms under him with a speeding range and crushing force that clearly cuts though his ribcage in a shattering pain; Shizuo nearly screams under him but his throat is blocked with the strain of its muscles and his windpipe burned in the back of his esophagus all the way to the higher base of his skull. Izaya presses resistance with his hand over his chest, but he can’t feel the smallest hints of burning skin from within with the layers of clothes on top so when he shifts his knees on the sheets is to catch Shizuo’s legs in between and lean on his waist to rip open his shirt and trail his fingers on his skin. Shizuo trembles at the touch and it causes more coughs from his throat before the pulse of Izaya’s beating under his palm eases along his own skin to flush the lines of heat and Shizuo wheezes the sharp intake of breath to say “The walls.. Water--” and then he closes his mouth again to dig his canines deeply into his lip as the next cough is knocking over his teeth.

 

“Bear with it.” Izaya says and swings his arm to catch around Shizuo’s shoulder and uses the stoutness of his bone to push himself and arch his spine so the curve of his hipbone would brush against Shizuo’s waistband. Shizuo nearly has the urge to reach over and grip the still-there violet mark with the lines of his fingertips again, ready to tug his spine with the jerk of his arm to bang Izaya flush on his skin and feel his curves on his own body, but it’s _Izaya_ and the tout of his lips pulled cunningly to a sadistic smile fists around his wishes and scrapes his hands in darkening knuckles, when the door swings open and the man steps in to rush over the bed as if undisturbed by the scenery that laid on the edges of brownish sheets. “This might help.” he says and takes out the food from the tray; “My wife made it specially in hopes you’d feel better, hunter. Please, we’re deeply worried, you’ve not quiet it down for hours...”

 

“That’s how it is.” Izaya says. “Thank you, I’ll--” and Shizuo breaks under him as the smell of the freshly cooked meal settles in his nostrils when he coughs. He’s not fast enough to cover it and Izaya is too distracted with the human on hand and Shizuo feels the spasm ripping his ribcage open as he gasps for air and widens his mouth to the clear vision over to both of the other’s watchful eyes. Izaya curses and pushes the tip of his wrist in his mouth to shut it himself and presses his bone to his canines as Shizuo feels the smell of garlic trailing beyond his nostrils and he hopes, in the minimal length of the possibility that their host did not saw any of it, that he’s distraction absorbed the musky food bowl instead of the trembling bloody lips that Shizuo forced to glue to each other.

 

“I can explain--” Izaya said with his eyes still hovering over his wrist on Shizuo’s mouth just as the man shoved his hand in the back and lounged for the edge of the bed. The strike is powerful, Shizuo can feel the vibration of it in his own skin when Izaya slips roughly from his waist and into the wall near; the man had a strong and metallic bar in his hand, slightly burned with fading dark marks on the head and it was still pressed to Izaya’s arm when he raised it forcefully to swing the blow to Shizuo’s head. He moves faster than the man’s rage, shifting his head to fall from the pillow and his leg to hit the ribs in a clear-out thwack, and the man stumbles to cut the sheets with the sharpness of its blade.

 

“You bring a _vampire_ in my house!?” he screams and dangles the cold metal off the bed to angle it above his shoulder and pierce his gaze directly in Shizuo’s eyes blinded by the wetness of tears from the over-controlled power he sustains to block the lingering spasms of coughing in his lungs. “I’ll kill you both!” and he turns to wag the projectile in the crock of Izaya’s neck and slide the blade on the flesh to bleed away; Izaya moves his head to twirl on the bed but his hem is caught in the head of the metal and when he moves it rips and brings him in closer colliding to the edge of the blade; the man swings the tip of it to press on his earlobe and his knuckles are white encircling the base to a strength that’ll leave bruising marks on his palm. “Fucking traitor.” he screams and in the full-sight of Izaya’s helpless eyes crying for help and the arch of the man’s elbow as the blade shifts to cut along his neck with one slash, Shizuo can’t hear the fastened footsteps or the crying of babies in his back--he sees only red and the shape of the man’s body convulsing along with his frustration so when he closes his hand around his shoulder to pull him into the wall and knock him out of his conscience, his fingers grip around a softer and hotter flesh, squeezes powerfully as to feel the individual pulses of his veins in his articulations as a reminder of the man’s life and when he throws him over it’s closely followed by the brutal and horrendous crack in his bones and the man goes numb in his hands as Shizuo hears the resonance of a spine-chilling cry in his back and feels the warm liquid imprint itself on his fingertips.

 

Izaya is shocked, his eyes are widened and Shizuo can see clearly his own silhouette in the darkness of his eyes; a big figure holding a blood-dripping head and Izaya moves his shaky legs in time with the burst of his own cough that covers the woman’s yelling.  _"Run."_ Izaya commands sharply and grabs around his arm to pull him out from the rotting room; he feels the soft curls of hair tangle in his fingers before he lets go completely to cover his mouth and breathe involuntarily the strong scent of freshly aroma.

 

He can’t see the track they take; Izaya must’ve run hectically ever since they stormed out of the house, but he hears the curses and when he cracks his eyes open he sees Izaya’s distinctive shadow move in circles as his fingers tug at his head to smack the hairs in between with his teeth clenched and jaw trembling. He shifts his legs and Izaya turns sharply to offer the burning fury in his eyes. “I could handle it.” he snaps and tightens his fist inside his pockets. “You just had to _rip_ his head off, didn’t you?!”

 

Shizuo sighs and rubs his fingertips to the drying blood on his palm. “I’m vampire...” he says, but it's not an answer and the truth of his existence stabs into his chest as he feels the tug of their sincere smiles shaping on his blank retina.

 

 _“Yes.”_ Izaya snaps and throws his body forcefully at the base of the tree to knock the back of his head on the hard truck as he takes the knife out to play it around his fingers and shift the metallic sound in the silence. “But you’re more than that--you’re a fucking _monster_.”

 

Shizuo doesn’t bother arguing; he’s always known that’s the truth.


	9. Iniquitous

* * *

 

Vampires protect their babies.

 

It’s an obligation, not the maternal string; vampires are always raised by the clan, not their distinctive parents, and the babies are always the ones most vulnerable. It’s that fact alone that stopped Shizuo from socialising while he was younger, the abnormality of his strength when he’d slash the dinning table with his own fist or when he cracked a boy’s arm while he attempted to high-five after they won a game of mime against two older teenagers. It's what isolated him further from his clan and craved his anger to bubble in the pit of his bones in a desire to smack his fist into something or someone and leave the struck of his blow to redden around the flowing blood vessels. His first hunt was the initial one every child takes as they reach the age of sixteen, fully prepared and trained to bite rightfully in the human’s necks and suck the sweetness of their blood with the twists of their soft tongues, but Shizuo didn’t expected his rage to unfold at such a young age and over the crowd of four teenagers walking on the outskirts. They were clearly drunk, balancing their weight on each other and twirling the bottles in their hands to smack them in pieces on the pavement; Shizuo didn’t realized what’s he doing--one moment he hears the people laugh and the other they’re shouting and screaming and only when he feels the smack of a bone under his knuckles does he realizes he’s been throwing fists at them until they sprawled on the ground in a messy tangle of limbs and wheezed in surrender as the grass under was soaked in dried blood. When he came back, his clan stared at him with fear and dejection. He had learned that vampires can survive without killing humans, just taking the amount they needed, even if it meant a higher number of attacks, but he was dead-set from the start to cause no more harm than he could already do. It seemed as his strength mocked him from the start--first in small and imminent measures that grew higher until he broke his brother’s spine at a tag game.

 

He decided to leave the clan by himself, living alone in the woods was always the best alternative for someone as monstrous as himself, though it never chased to fail the endless encounters with foolish and proudly vampires; he was a legend around their folklore, a bedtime horror story for the new-borns and the target for everyone that searched self-redemption. Vampires hated him; humans hated every type of a vampire and his self-hate was the biggest strain that pulsed in his veins to throb under his skin and erupt in a fight; Shizuo knew everyone hated him as much as he knew he was a monster, a deadly machine with pointing canines and a blood-thirst dulled by the lingering stream of its flavour in the cigarettes smoke, so when Shizuo twisted his fingers around his neck and pulled he knew what the outcome would be, even throughout his hazy, poisoned mind.

 

He remembered the easy smiles everyone from the family threw their way and the enthusiastic glimmer in the eyes when he presented his inventions; it was something commonly known in the villages, people securing themselves with any insignificant weapons they had, but Shizuo had to be the one to torment and crumble the peacefulness into millions of uneven pieces. The wife was crying, laying on the floor with her knees dark-red and messy hair falling over her shoulders and teary eyes, the babies cried somewhere in a further room closed from their vision and Izaya trembled and remained petrified as the blood spilled on the walls and the hem of his furred jacket. Shizuo didn’t even knew his name; the heart-warming host never delivered it to any of them, too absorbed with the excitement and joy to billet two honoured hunters in his own small house and now he was sprawled on the cold floor with the bar still attached to his palm and his head rolled down-faced on the bloody carpet.

 

It could’ve been avoided, even from the start, if Shizuo refused to help and didn’t backed off from the danger of being called in by the police; it would’ve culminated in his death and therefore spared the endless rows of generations from his torment, but Shizuo was too much of a coward all his life to face the problems firsthand and with full-force; it was Izaya that swigged his paralyzer in his hand to wave it in his eyes and held the mockery of his smirk craved by the outlines of his lips in the darkened basement and the certainty which Shinra offered as he said _‘He’d actually do it.’_ was all Shizuo needed to choose the harshly contoured path to Izaya. It’s all on Izaya, Shizuo realizes as he squirms his thoughts in his head, hearing the distant soft snores Izaya gives within his sleep and when Shizuo moves his leg to brush the grass underfoot and lean his head on the ground again, he turns and traces the curve of his back--shined on top from the strongly moonlight and raising slowly with every breath. Shizuo wonders how can he sleep so soundly with his presence puffing in his back like the rapping of a gun; after all that happened and after the horrendous sight laid right in front of him. It struck him that maybe he’s not the only one, maybe he got paired up with another monster that could shape the lines of sympathy as best as he could shape his anger in control and it made him curl his nails in his palm to gush small trails of blood from under it’s pliable skin until he felt the sore aftermath numbing the articulations under his wrist.

 

If there’s one person he craves to kill in his whole endless and fucked life, it’s that atrocious and damned flea.

 

* * *

 

Of all the alternatives for his decision, having a murder on his hands was the last thing Izaya anticipated.

 

And now Shizuo was too disorientated to even cope with the job at hand and walk into a straight line. “What is it? Has the scent vanished now?”

 

“You don’t expect it to be in the air _forever_.” Shizuo snaps as he takes the sharp turn around a tree to the dense forest. “This is your fault with all your stop-ups.”

 

“Are you blaming _me_? Should I remind you who just killed a human?” and he takes the lead to brush his coat-furred edges on the bushes as his fingers play with the tip of the knife. “For that I should kill you.” Izaya says and pivots his heels into the ground to twirl on his own balance and swing it to his chest.

 

“You know you can’t find any damn trace on her without me.” Shizuo says to the darkened shadows of his crimson though his words stung in his throat and every sound burns his windpipe and he grimaces to shift his vision directly to the pointing blade.

 

“And you’ve clearly been of help by now.” Izaya retorts and when he moves is to drag down the edge of the knife and Shizuo’s flesh burns under the touch of golden curves. “You’re just a stupid monster, why would I need you?” he says and when he moves his wrist to press deeper through his clothes, Shizuo catches it in his own palm and bents it so the weight of the knife drops to the ground and he tugs, feeling the strain of Izaya’s muscles move with his force and slam him into his colder chest.

 

“You’ve seen what I did to that man, I’d _enjoy_ doing the same to you.” Shizuo groans and tightens his hold so every rhythm of Izaya’s pulse becomes his own, every curve of his veins are imprinted on his fingertips and when Izaya breathes, it collides with his skin just above the clavicle and the warmth of it drags his muscles to hunch over and absorb it firsthand. “I want to kill you so much, Izaya.”

 

Izaya groans--or laughs, Shizuo can’t say much over the drumming in his ears--and when he tries to loose his fist, his hand slides from Shizuo’s own to the rim of his ribs and he digs deep to feel them under the tight vest; Shizuo feels his fingers like the lighting of a train, and smacks his hold to push him forcefully on the ground. Izaya doesn’t have enough time to prepare for it; it must’ve been Shizuo’s sudden jerk of his hand, or maybe the way Shizuo’s skin seemed to warm itself under his fingertips to emit the smallest heat under the cold and wet uniform, but Izaya doesn’t think about it when his rim collides with the harsh ground, feeling Shizuo’s eyes on him as they quiver with frustration and a murderous rage.

 

“You know what happens if you kill me, right? You’ll have all the hunters on your head.” Izaya sighs as he grips the handle of his knife and pushes his fist into the ground to raise gracefully and arches his hand to swing it into his pocket.

 

“I’d like to see ‘em try.” Shizuo says instead and leans on the tree to watch him from under his lashes as he braces his arms over his chest. “I could rip them all to pieces, and then no more hunters for any of our damned humans.”

 

“Why don’t you?” Izaya snaps and shakes his hand to point over to his head and clench his fingers into a strangling fist. “If you’re so sure, why haven’t you done it, hah?”

 

Shizuo hunches his shoulders and drags his feet after him. When he looks down, Izaya is standing merely inches away, his eyes narrowed and the gleam of his eyes darkened by his own bleached hair falling over his own and his lips are soft and tight, the smallest hints of pinkish flesh around the wider complex of paleness that drives him to raise his fingertip over and part them widely to see the imprints of his nail around the bloody bruises it could leave; “I don’t want to start a war.”

 

Izaya gags under his stare with the beginning of a knocking laugh. “ _Start_ a war? Humans are at war with vampires since the black death, you should know that.”

 

“I’m not _that_ old.” Shizuo growls and pushes the hair from his forehead to breathe the stilled air and ease his beating heart. “I just wish some people would think truthfully at the real consequences they’ve made. You can’t stop us by manslaughter us.”

 

“I believe humans or vampires, we both are the same in this one.” Izaya purrs and shifts his feet to leave Shizuo take in the last aroma of clear air before he opens his eyes to his retreating back. “We’re all similar because nobody can live a truthful life.” he touts and when he shifts his head over the shoulder, Shizuo is standing still in his back, his muscles visibly glued to the surface of the dead leaves-stained ground and Izaya barely hears the wheeze of the sound before he feels the pain-striking ache on his side. His ribs protest at the force of it and he feels his shirt bubbled in soaking blood before he hits the ground again to shake his hands out from his pockets and grab at the stabbed arrow. He smells a distinct scent of gasoline and his flesh hardens inside and around the metallic blade until it itches uncontrollably and Izaya pushes his hands to hold a better pressure over his hardening skin. It doesn’t hurt that much on the outside, his hands are moving with precision and speed, but his vision blackened just as he sees the shape of a knee sliding next to his head and he can’t hear Shizuo’s deep voice over his constant ringing violating the depths of his eardrums.

 

Izaya doesn’t know for sure if he blanked out from the poison or from Shizuo’s hand twisting his neck in the given opportunity.

 


	10. Associates

* * *

 

It’s way overly hot.

 

Izaya can feel his skin burning from inside-out; he’s sweating and he tries to swipe the heat from his forehead with the brush of his knuckles, but he can’t even lift his hand to the length of his neck and press under his bone to track the thumping spreading from his heart faster than the storming destruction of a tornado. He thinks he might be paralyzed, his bones ached with the pressure that stung his skin as he laid flush on his spine, his lashes fluttered softly but strained on his eyelids to keep glued on his eyeballs, but then he tries to shift his leg over the blankets and it does move easily--the muscle closes around his bone as he feels the fibres stretching around his vessels and when he swings its weight he can feel the coldness of the uncovered part of the sheet on his flesh and it spreads in his own blood to level his warmth in one monotone heat.

 

“Don’t move.” he hears, and it's so faint he thinks he might’ve been dreaming. It’s a soft and feminine voice, sweet around the edges and with a clear familiarity that he can’t pin-point right on the first bursts of vowels. “It’s better if you just lie down, Izaya Orihara.” she says again, and Izaya can finally structure the presence besides him.

 

“Saki?” he asks just as the girl shifts her small hand over his leg to pull the blanket over and trap him in the calefaction cage.

 

“I’m surprised you remember me, Orihara Izaya.” She says and wheezes her breath to pour it over his skin. Izaya opens his eyes with the force of his striking curiosity and even though he can see only her shady shape, he knows her defined features and he clearly sees the razor-sharp smile she offers in his sight.

 

“What happened?” Izaya asks and shuts his eyes repeatedly to accommodate to the lit room and her keen edges.

 

“Oh.” Saki sighs and moves to reach over a table and take a glass in her hand. She lifts it to his mouth and urges him to bent his neck and gulp the liquid away; it tasted awful, too sweet for his tastes and too cloggy so he shuts his lips tightly after to grimace at the feeling flowing on his throat. “I’m sorry about that, we thought you two were about to attack us.”

 

“ _You_ saw us?” he asks and when he opens his eyes he finally can trace her narrowing eyes and the soft silk dress pulling on her shoulders.

 

“Not _me_ , but Kida did. And when he saw you, well, you know how he is. Mostly he was scared of that friend of yours, but considering the fact he’s a vampire, we shouldn’t be worried.” she explains and takes the glass from his slightly trembling grasp. “Who is that friend, anyway? It’s been years since you last worked with our kind as I remember.”

 

Izaya groans under his breath as he pushes his elbow to straighten on his back; “He’s definitely not my _friend_. I have some sort of unsigned contract with that one to help me in an investigation.”

 

“A hunting investigation?” Saki asks with clear interest striking in her tonality. “That’s clearly something.”

 

“I start to horribly regret my decision.” he says and as he lifts his head is to press it to the hard wall behind him when Saki whispers eagerly: “You never make wrongful decisions.” and he nearly smiles fully before he catches the darkness from outside and the contour of the old furniture laid around in a fashionable manner. “Where are we?”

 

“ _Ah_ , it’s our home. Mine and Kida’s and our clan’s. We’ve been working on it ever since you helped us.”

 

“I see you’ve been busy.” Izaya laughs as he trails his fingertips on the woodened nightstand that shined with the polished surface to brush his skin smoothly on the cover. “How are your legs?”

 

“Fully healed, of course.” she reassures and taps her hand over her knee to slap the flesh in a firm offering of resistance. “Kida is still blaming himself, but I keep telling him they couldn’t be avoided. Besides, I know I pushed it myself.” Izaya hums at the memory; when Saki asked him for help as a group of fully loathed villagers followed in the depths of the woods--as they caught her and cracked her bones, drugging her and stabbing their slim bars of metal in her sides until she was knocked out on the ground and left cold with the illusion of a slow death. “But, what about you? After what happened to your sisters, I thought you quitted permanently.”

 

Izaya feels his breath blocked in his windpipe and he traces the paleness rising in his cheeks as the memories flushed uncontrollably in front of his vision and blinded every curve of his surroundings. “I’m used to not think about it.” he whispers under his breath and closes his palms in tight fists involuntarily.

 

Saki nods in his peripheral vision; she grabs the edges of the blanket to pull it upwards to his neck and Izaya moves to blink in her direction as she smiles undisturbed and looked him in the eyes with an easiness he nearly missed.

 

“You should steady yourself, the dinner will be ready in a few hours.” she says and pulls her heels over the floor to stand up and lit the candles above the bed to illuminate over Izaya’s raven hair and linger the bitterly aroma of the burning flames. “I’m sure you’re eager to see your _friend_ again.”

 

Izaya snorts in annoyance and bangs the back of his head as the door slams shut but he still feels the plug of happiness and the edge of a reckless half-friendship stringed between them over the years, and he lets his mind drift over to the far-off memories of his own past instead of focusing on Shizuo, but it all comes back to him like a circular line and he imagines the sharpness of his jaw and the strength of his blows imprinting around his waist in a squeeze rather than a crumbled bone.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I’ll serve that brat with _my_ food at _my_ table.” Shizuo hears the young vampire next to him wheeze out as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hands to twirl them around his fingers and smack repeatedly on the table-cloth and when he moves his arm Shizuo can see the define vein of impatience craved along it. “How do you stand him?” he snaps in his ear just as the chopsticks collide with the cling of the plate and Shizuo feels his eyes on his profile tracing every curve of his jaw.

 

He shifts his head to the right and catches the weight of his eyes with his own to hold the steadiness of their stares in one straight line and then he pushes his fist on the table and gropes hard around the edge of his plate as the surface cracks in his fisted palm. “I don’t.” he says and eases his hold as he hears a distant sound of heels pivoting over the hard wooden floor, and as the smell of freshly cooked meal warms the depths of his nostrils. “I want to _kill_ him.”

 

“I know, me too!” the kid exasperates and throws his hands to the air in a clear enjoyment as if he realized they both fancy the same board game or they’ve both read the books of a commonly loved author and when he turns is to shout over to the person climbing down the stairs: “Saki, this vampire also wants to kill--” and stops mid-way as his voice gags over his lungs and Shizuo feels the string of significant bitterly smell spreading all the way throughout his pores. _“Great.”_ Kida groans and Shizuo can’t argue more with the strained frustration the kid also feels upon Izaya’s presence.

 

He can’t look away though, even if the other spun his head to the offering of his meal with the speed of lighting, Shizuo pulled a grimace and narrowed his eyes to blackness, but his head remained as steady as before and he watched every careful step Izaya took over the stairs as his legs moved with grace and easiness that plugged the insignificant hardened muscles in the aftermath of the poison spreading inside his system. Shizuo curves his fingers and held tight around his knees to stop the quivering reaction that urged him to step over the span of bare space and grope around Izaya’s wrist to force the grip over a shattering bone, but Izaya slides effortlessly to the last set of stairs and smirks in his direct vision and Shizuo trembles with the anger spreading in his veins as he finally shuts his eyes for the better claim of his food at hand. He hears them coming--a chair is pulled for the girl, next to the head of the table occupied by the young adult that spreads his arms to catch his fingers on her warming cheek and pinch her flesh in a childlike greeting, but the other is dragged next to him, the chair scraping over the floor like a turbulence of a bomb and he sees Izaya’s flock of hair wavering as he sits down and slides the chair to bring his knee flush to his own under the table. “Are you making friends?” Izaya purrs and leans over to lay claim over his own chopsticks and twirl them around to catch the freshly tuna, bringing it quickly to his parted lips. “If it’s Kida, should I be worried for a second attempted murder?”

 

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat to taste the annoyance fisthandly as he gulps the strain of frustration bubbling on his tongue. “How the _fuck_ do you even know them?” he asks and hunches his shoulders to catch the darkness of his shadows blurring away the giveaway of his eyes.

 

“Kida and Saki are my beloved friends, _Shizuo-chan_.” Izaya says and Shizuo is too caught up in the distraction of perfectly cooked and warm meal to acknowledge the additional nickname the first time. He spins around when he does, his fingers curled with such strength that it bents the sticks in half just in time as Kida sharply takes his tone over the edge of violence when he curses: _“I’m not your friend you fucking asshole!”_ and Shizuo angles his hand in a visible fist to smack across his perfect outlines on his face.

 

“Let’s stop now.” The girl--Saki--as Shizuo remembers shouts in a still quiet voice that resonates throughout them all and it eases his blow to a simply trembling trace of clenched fingers. “Orihara Izaya is an always welcomed guest in our house, Kida, and this is a meal for our guests. I don’t want you to start a fight over illusionary vexations.” she sighs and when she lowers her hand is to encircle it around her cup and bring it to her forehead-length in a preparation of a toast. “This is for the good times to come and the blossoming friendship of our guests.”

 

Shizuo groans and he feels Izaya shifting in annoyance, but when he turns, he can shape the clear-out smile on his cheeks as it warms his paler complex to a vivid gold and he’s the first to raise the glass high in air and cling it to Saki’s. “And may we not kill each other.” Izaya adds as Saki rushes her hand over her mouth to hide the outburst of a laugh; Kida scowls from his chair over to his meal, bunching in what looked like a direct surrender and when he looks over to Saki, she held her glass towards him and curves the innocent innuendo of a smile and Shizuo forces himself to bring his own glass in a twist of a clinging sound.

 

The meal goes on with no other curse or shift of his muscles; Izaya and Saki are the ones that talk undisturbedly and laugh over something Shizuo can’t understand and over which Kida growls rougher to vibrate in their individual chords, and when Shizuo gathers his last lingering trails of food from his plate, he swirls up on his foot to bow in appreciation and exit the widely kitchen under the excuse of a tired state. Shizuo is tired, every step he takes feels more zombie-like and forced and as he reaches the front of his chamber, he stops to angle his fingers above the doorknob to trace the metallic feeling on his fingertips. Izaya comes from his back--he smells the bitterness in the air--and when he passes him is with a brush of his fingers on the strain of his shoulder blade and Shizuo turns sharply in time with Izaya’s mocking salute of a cutting smirk that broke with the parting of his lips as he spoke, twisting his tongue in Shizuo’s vision to tap away on his bottom lip and the rim of his white teeth _. “Try to kill me yourself next time, Shizuo-chan.”_

 


	11. Taste

* * *

 

Shizuo hates every move Izaya makes, every swing of his wrist over the laid out pieces and the arch of his fingers as they grip around the heads to twirl them in the respectable colored spots on the board. He watches his pale skin more than the pieces themselves, curves his fists to whitened knuckles as every move strikes inside him with a blow to his rib and when he takes the action upon his own turn it's shaken with disinterest as he throws the pieces uncarelessly on the hard surface. He smells the air around him, but even the bitterness of _Izaya_ fades as the strings of annoyance grip at his heart to block any other sense from functioning and when Shizuo groans, he feels Izaya shift in his love-seat to brush his legs one over the other and raise his chin to offer the lines of sharp lashes to his own darkening eyes. “I don’t fucking know chess.” Shizuo grunts and smacks his hands behind his head to arch his spine and crack the stillness in his bones. When he spreads his legs, his boots stop on Izaya’s own and he pushed harder to imprint the back of them on the cleaned shoes, but Izaya doesn’t move if only to spread his legs himself and brush them on Shizuo’s own, feeling the tension rising in his bones all the way to his throbbing head in the trail of a headache.

 

“It’s quality time, Shizuo-chan. Would you rather we upset our _dear_ hostess?” Izaya asks, twisting his tongue on his nickname as he laid it to the other in an offering of sharpened mockery that craved his nerves in the back of his muscles to irk at the skin underneath; “We don’t want the same to unfold as last time, do we?” and he lifts his leg to rub on Shizuo’s pants and reaches over the table to push one of Shizuo’s knights off the board. “Or maybe you want to be motivated?”

 

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Shizuo snaps and the force of his retreating legs bruises the curve of his knees. “I don’t need any motivational quote from _you_.”

 

“Not a quote.” Izaya purrs and swings his hand to fish out the knife from his pocket. “Vampires can’t be lured with _words_.”

 

“Do you plan to threaten me that you’d cut me?” Shizuo asks unimpressed and pushes his elbows harder on the arms of his chair. He hears Izaya laugh before him and the tip of a hard metal pushing on the table rhythmically.

 

“Don’t be stupid.” Izaya says and then: “I’m talking about blood.” and Shizuo widens his eyes to stare back at the glowing crimson which Izaya offered and the touting smirk that shaped itself with mockery clearly written on his eyes as well.

 

 _“Izaya.”_ Shizuo growls and shifts to get a better position and arch his spine to a reflex of ascension. “Don’t joke about that.”

 

“I’m not.” he says and swings his knife to the tip of his wrist, still watching petrified the unblinking stare Shizuo delivered to his exposed arm. Shizuo felt like it was the first time seeing it, the first time acknowledging the paleness of Izaya’s skin that spasms with red from the throb of his vessels closer to the flesh and matching with the thump of his heartbeat, and Shizuo felt thirsty on instant, his eyes fully darkened by his dilated irises and the curve of a lusting desire that pushed him to waver in the armchair with impatience and eagerness. “Win the game and you can drink.” Izaya says over the ringing in his eardrums that stung powerfully over his brain and the slash resonates in his own pulse as he sees the blood dripping on the pale skin and sliding on the carpet and when he stands it’s with shaky legs and arching arms that reach over Izaya with a numbing pain to tug the flesh over to his mouth. Izaya squeals at the soreness, squirms his hand to slip from Shizuo’s hold but he pulls tighter and when he shuts his mouth around his wrist is to dig sharply his teeth inside and let the flow of blood streaming over his tongue; it’s warmer than anything he ever tasted, sweeter and a lot creamier than he ever imagined a meal could ever get, and Izaya fought against the strength for a short span of time before he left his hand to hang numbly and Shizuo heard the sharp intakes shudder over his hair as Izaya tried to bring his own composure in check so his whimpers won’t echo around the room.

 

“I said _after_ you won the game.” Izaya sighs with a restrain in his voice and Shizuo groans; as he breaks his contact, he swirls his tongue around his flushed lips to catch every lingering drop of sweetness and turns to bite with his canines fully in his flesh and suck on his skin until Izaya squirms and shifts his legs to bend them over to himself in a clear offering of pleasure unfolded with Shizuo’s hunger itself and it makes him aroused, the stigma of Izaya’s gasps under him as he trails his sucks on his higher arm and into the flesh; Shizuo doesn’t know if he can stop any of it now--he moves and tugs at the arm to stroke his fingers around Izaya’s wrist as his fingers squeezed around his bone and Izaya trembles under him with the freshly-formed sweat on the edge of his forehead and when Shizuo opens his eyes to look over the lashes, Izaya is gasping for air with his hair slick-wet and sticking over his narrowed eyes as his lips whisper the vowels with elegant softance and Shizuo lifts his knee over the chair between Izaya’s legs to spread them wider for Izaya to capitulate to the sensation and twirl his legs around the length of his waist. It brings him closer just as Izaya trails his arms off Shizuo’s slippery hold to size it around his shoulders and tug his fingers in his hair to dirty the blond with his messier reddish stains; Izaya urges Shizuo’s head onto his own, pulling roughly as the scalp burned from the strain of abused hairlines and Shizuo catches stability in the hand he presses near the crock of Izaya’s head, over the silk of cushions, and he leans in as Izaya arches up to breathe the air in a stream to Shizuo’s own nostrils, but the smell strikes inside his muscles with the sharp reminder of reality and Shizuo breaks the connection with the jerk of his blow on Izaya’s exposed neck as the other shouts, too close for his ear and too anguished that Shizuo nearly leaned back in to warm his hand over the bruise.

 

He stands though, and when he stumbles over his feet he sizes Izaya’s silhouette spread over the cushions with his legs bounced on the table and the chessboard forgotten, dropped on the floor and only at Izaya’s sharp _“Get out.”_ does Shizuo move to push his way vigorously outside and into the colder approach of the corridor.

 

Shizuo knows by now that Izaya meant it all like a teasing, or a sadistic present he prepared exclusively for himself, but Shizuo can’t push away the taste of it now that Izaya offered it to him firsthand.

 


	12. Belligerent

* * *

 

It was a bad idea.

 

Izaya can still feel the finger marks lingering on his skin like spark flickering in the fire, it burns his skin still and the bruises are darkening with the more he presses his own fingertips flushed to the curve of every one of them. He hasn't planed it that way; it all must’ve been oscillating around Shizuo’s frustration and a blow to smack the table and crushing it to pieces instead of loathing for his blood so easily as he did, with not even a spare time for himself to gather his thoughts of rationality, but Shizuo was unpredictable, or maybe he was too insensible and when he skims his fingers over his wrist he can trace the wetness of his tongue sucking on the flesh until the skin turns a reddening shade and his bones fell into numbness to follow the softening pattern. It still feels like a turbulence to his system; his muscles ache with the strain that looses around every plug of his remembrance and his fingers twitch with the desire to catch a heat obstructed by the colder skin around it, and instead he reaches over the pages to fling the other sheet around and stare over the words unblinkingly with the illusion of overly captured attention.

 

The page nearly rips from the rim of the book, the edge almost cutting the center of his fingertip and when he sighs the door is opened as if on cue and he feels the tension itching in his bones as Shizuo’s presence washes over him like a magnetic pull.

 

“Izaya.” Shizuo says in his back and Izaya hums in his windpipe to hide the anticipation of fingers holding great resistance on his own skin to tug it towards his pointing razor-canines and break the flesh underneath to suck on his blood with agonizing slowness. “I’m hungry.”

 

“And is that supposed to be my problem?” he irks even though his muscles pick up at the harshness of his tone and his head jerks minimally to catch the sound of his breathing on his direct earshot.

 

 _“Yes.”_ Shizuo snaps as he pushes his nails dip into the cushions under his head to slide his hair on his knuckles. “You did it once, don’t play dumb with me.”

 

“ _You’re_ the one who doesn’t need to _push it_.” Izaya retorts and shuts the book to shift in the love-seat and gaze over his shoulder to the clear outline of his jaw and the sticking hair locks in the shadows darkened by the mocha contrast. “Maybe the knife will cut through your heart instead of my arm.”

 

Shizuo groans and smacks his hand over Izaya’s head to grip the hair in his fist and tug it towards himself as his lips brushed the edges of his ear and his nails dig into the scalp to gush the stream of blood. Izaya hisses at the string of his forced hairlines and when Shizuo blows his breath over him it feels like a glacial wave icing his bones to soreness and he turns in time with Shizuo’s tight fist as he encloses it around his jaw to snap it upwards and offer the outlines of his flushing neck. He jerks his arms in the back, trying to push him aside from his skin but Shizuo tightens his hold to the verge of strangulation and Izaya gags at the force of his nails bruising the sharper lines of his neck. Shizuo lounges his teeth before Izaya can protest to it with a swing of his head and Shizuo grips tighter when Izaya convulses his throat to emit the resonating sound to its canines in a firsthand offering of the flowing liquid streaming pass his mouth and when he tries to speak it echoes as a barely wheezing moan and Shizuo bites harder and trails his hands over his shoulder so when he inhales the moan is breaking from his chords to the direct groan in Shizuo’s own.

 

His hands tremble with determination as he levels them to twist his fist into Shizuo’s hair and Shizuo groans and tightens his bite to break his skin on the crock of his shoulder when Izaya shifts his legs to wave above the handles of his love-seat and rocks his hips to the emptiness of the space around him until Shizuo pushes his hand lower to his chest and presses him flashily on the cushion; his fingers spread the warmth around his hidden skin but its still too hot for him to comprehend to and when he lifts his own hand, he twirls the fingers around Shizuo’s own and digs his nails painfully to his knuckles. It feels good, as much as it’s totally wrong and Izaya feels the arousal swarming into him to twitch at the base of his cock and fastens his breathing to the wetness of his sweat-dumped forehead, but Shizuo moves just as he longed his skimming fingers to his hair in a shifting turn, Shizuo backs away and wipes the blood off from his lips--they’re still swollen with the aftermath of the brutal sucking--and when he talks it’s rasped and wobbling in his own veins. “Stay down.” he says and Izaya doesn’t have enough time to ask why before the door of the library draws open and Kida storms into the room with his footfalls landing too sharply on the knocking tiles.

 

“They’ve attacked again!” he screams to Shizuo’s face before the advancing pace dies out and Izaya hears him inhaling as he breaks into another shout. “Kamakura was fucking _hit_ by them, it’s too close.” he sighs as Izaya slides under the cover of his cushions to blend his hair into the warmth and cover of thick layers, and Kida taps his feet over the floor to echo the frustration strained in his bones. “They’ll come here in no time!”

 

“Who?” Shizuo asks with a pickling annoyance tight relished within his growls.

 

Kida snorts on the trail of his nostrils; “The Dollars. Those lunatics are getting closer and closer!” he explains and smacks his foot to lay claim over the desperation that grips around himself. He stops then though, as if he stumbled over his feet to regain balance or as if he knocked over a bare and sharply edged table and when he speaks Izaya hears the clear repugnance spilled over his tongue like an intoxicating poison. “What’s _he_ doing?”

 

Izaya shudders as his fingers linger over his bleeding shoulder and urges the stream to a forced stop when Kida says “Why does it smell of blood here?” and hears his feet skipping over the carpet before Shizuo tugs at his arm to get him into a sudden halt.

 

“Sleeping.” Shizuo says, and then he grips around Kida’s shoulders to hold resistance on his bones and Izaya hears their voices like drumming whispers in his still-screaming ears until he slides his hand off his bleeding zone to bring it flush to his hipbone.

 

The arousal eased until then; only the faintest spasms thumping on his trembling fingertips but Izaya is too lost to so much as get the hold of his self-tranquility and he’s too hazy to line his body back and succumb to the already unfollowing story of his book so he shuts his eyes tightly and inhales deeply to catch the still niggling scent Shizuo emerged and feel the hotness of his blood as still-wet lips tracing over his skin.

 


	13. Concupiscence

* * *

 

Izaya craves for more.

 

It must’ve been the lingering heat from his blood vessels, or the marks deeply bruising his neck under the protection of his weightless furred coat that half-hides the exposure of pale skin from the other eyes around but he’s too self-conscious for what he’d done and he locks himself in the offering of comfort in his room to allow partial intrusion from Saki and no one else, so he can blend into the warmer sheets with a book in hand to skim over the words as he tapes unblinkingly the pattern Shizuo’s teeth craved on his skin and when he looks over the window it’s already dark with the hints of barely-lit stars and his eyelids roll over to stare at the ceiling instead and trace the curve of Shizuo’s bleached hair over himself. He wants to forget and shake the feeling from his aching bones; Saki does it when she comes in with the mocking smirk of a knowing secret from which Izaya can’t hide away if only shamelessly painted in the inks of blame, but he still thinks about it and it’s the news that gets to him--almost, small and slowly, but surely and in full-force--as the knowledge of another attack strikes his memory of his hunter job at hand and he prepares for the trip without the struggle of deciphering the reason behind his hammering heart. Shizuo doesn’t came in the day, but Izaya smells him, probably as a reminder but surely as a lingering scent into the atoms constructing the existence around himself and he sees him from the harden cover of his glass-window as he trails his fingertips on the shady contour of Shizuo’s silhouette sitting around the garden or reading under the protection of a dense tree, so Izaya leaves the clean-up for later; he doesn’t have much anyway, just his knife and the weight of his fur coat which he keeps endlessly around his shoulders, and succumbs to the image of Shizuo grasping the frustration with eased muscles and harsh features.

 

Shizuo stands under the tree, his hair darker and shaped to the shadows of brown with every wave of the wind through the branches; his vest curves his own body to the fine outline of an uncharacteristically softer frame, his skin brightened under the sunset, warming with the purple and orange glow of rays and Izaya feels his breath stilled into his throat until he feels his fingers move on their own to the lower hem and tugs it over his waistband.

 

He moves fast, holding an arm over his forehead as his knee presses resistance on the glass to spread the space between wider and when he shifts his wrist is to close his articulations around the heating cock and strokes once over the head to wet his fingers with the lingering precum that twirls over his fingertips. His forehead is silk-wet under his knuckles as he tightens his fingers to scrape the nails over the glass and clenched his teeth within his gums to hiss around his tongue as his windpipe strained over a blowing moan.

 

His hand slides away from the base; it’s burning from the inside more prominently than around the curves so he wires the cum around his fingers to provide the wetness that guides the weight of his finger inside to curl on instant as he pushes it over an inch to feel the heat of his flesh on his own colder rush of stuck blood pulsing away in his arm. He pushes harder until the finger is fully dug inside to tighten the walls around himself and he thinks of Shizuo’s own roughness in his bites, of his skin breaking under the stung of his canines to spill blood on his flesh so when he moves it’s to trace the same brutality on himself and scrapes his nails until the finger slides off to scratch the curved base before pushing it forcefully again with the addition of a new finger that sizes his walls wider with aguishly pain. He doesn’t stop though, not even to catch his breath as the thrusts bring a striking twinge and he rocks his hips over the glass as his knee wobbles to keep him steady and to offer a wider spread as he shuts his eyes to lay claim over the illusion of a burning breath on his neck and a hand around his hipbone to enclosure the bruising red over his spine. He can already feel the throbbing cock above his knuckles in an aching desire to pour over his palm, and he feels warmer as he imagines Shizuo over him, hunched to block him onto the flush of the glass in a clear display for anyone passing through, his breath catching the curve of his bitten shoulder and Izaya shudders as he feels the pointing canines crack the skin again and suck on his blood with such speed that urges his wrist to twist harder, rougher and quicker as the force of a moan burns his windpipe in an open-mouthed scream that flutters his eyes open to the darkening sunset and when he clears his vision to the shadows from under where Shizuo must’ve been, his eyes widen as they caught the glimmer of mischievous mocha-red light and shapes the features of parted lips on a defined shock and arousal alike and when Izaya shuts his mouth, his hand moves itself to a rhythmical speed. Shizuo doesn’t waver his gaze from his own, keeps looking to the offering of Izaya’s smirk through the cover of glass and then Izaya bucks his hips harder on the flat surface and mouths the voiceless pleas for Shizuo’s presence and the press of his fingers around the strain that surges wider with the force of Izaya’s slimmer digits. He feels his cock curl on his stomach and smack on the glass through his waistband and Shizuo’s eyes are everything that holds him still standing, his feet quiver under his strained muscles and the heat that surges over him as the wounds itch with a reminder of roughly bites and then he spasms over his fingers and gags over his breath as the moan blurs the edge of the glass to a shady white.

 

Shizuo shifts from under the tree, stepping over the grass with determination at the pivoting of his heels into the ground and Izaya shudders with a new anticipation that skids over his blood and runs his vessels to numbness.

 

* * *

 

 

Shizuo feels the pull like a magnet.

 

He was reading before everything unfolded in a string of pulsing adrenaline and over-the-edge arousal; trying to calm his nervous desire to force Izaya’s door down and launch for the heat of warming blood, and the fresh brush of wind and the spectrum of almost darkness casts the perfect environment for him to lay down and loose his thoughts in addition for a randomly picked book, but it crumbles the moment he shifts his head like the stroke of Izaya’s fingers were glued to his own jaw and he widens his eyes at the sight of him pressed onto the window, Izaya touching himself after what Shizuo did to his skin and Izaya climaxing with the innuendo of his presence so Shizuo was certain what pattern his boots would take as he shifted his knees to quiver from the grass and faster into the mason all the way to Izaya’s room.

 

He knocks, and Izaya opens in instant, pushing stability on his feet and smirking in his way as if nothing had happened and Izaya shifts his arm to the door with his fingers gripped tightly around the cover of a book to whisper “Shizuo-chan.” to the other with an uncontrolled purr from his windpipe that still ached with the aftermath of roughly-screamed moans to the emptiness of the walls. “I suppose you liked the show?”, just as Shizuo groans and swirls his palm around his arm to push him inside and towards the still unmade bed.

 

“I don’t care about your damned shows.” Shizuo snaps and shoves Izaya to brace his knees into the bed and fall over it himself to grip at his shoulder, finally spreading his own heat into Izaya’s own aching body though Shizuo moves faster to lean over so his knees banged on the carpet and when he tugs, Izaya shudders a wheeze as he feels the vibration of his breath on his cock.

 

“You seemed quite intrigued.” Izaya says in the end but it knocks his own rims and glues to the opening of his lips so when he speaks, it sounds blurry and drifting on the edge; he feels his hands shaking with dexterity though, it prickles above his bones and widens along his vessels for a quicker pace of his blood when he raises his fingers to Shizuo’s hair and grasps the blond tightly in between his fingers to tug eagerly as he feels Shizuo’s breath on himself and the pointing tip of his canine on the base, curving along the individual knots formed under the flesh like his anticipation grew over the spilling verge of rationality. He can’t speak after that, and he tries, every word is build in the back of his throat like the lingering drops of gasoline, but Shizuo hunches his head and presses flashily on his hipbone to knock him back on his spine to surge his tongue along the base all the way to the swallowed head and dissolve his precum on his flows. Izaya shudders under him, his legs twitch with the aching pleasure that washes over his veins and when he lifts his knee to brush it on Shizuo’s back, it moves way upper and closes around his shoulders to flex the inside of his knee around the falling sweat-wet hairlines on Shizuo’s nape. His cock is pulsing under Shizuo’s twirl of tongue in a fast and painful stroke as his hips buck out from the sheets to raise the heating around his strained walls until Shizuo jerks his head lower to catch the form of his balls under his trail and brush it along the bulge hardening the resistance in his overly ached flesh. Shizuo moves his tongue roughly and fast around him to imprint the layers of veins on his muscle. Izaya is already over the edge; he feels his cum chilling around his skin so when Shizuo presses his fingers to stamp onto his hipbone as he feels his bone slightly crushing under his agonizing blow, Izaya lifts his spine fully from the sheets and hits his orgasm in time with Shizuo purring from his chords into the structure of his own softening flesh.

 

He can’t breathe and his vision blanks to white blinding over his eyes, he still flexes his legs around Shizuo’s shoulders and Shizuo still leans above him rasping as if he realizes the heat under his fingertips and the stickiness of his cum so when he traces his fingers under Izaya’s shirt is to grip around his skin to tug it forcefully in the twist of his articulations and trace the bruise of his nails on his chest. Izaya feels him angling his knee in the crock spread between his legs and when he looks up over the lashes, he sizes the silhouette in the darkness of the nighttime washing from under the window to illuminate the curves of his hair and the tout of his lips--they’re glowing, flushed with the pink of the stroke struggles as he inhales on his chords to pour the heat over his neck. Izaya lifts his arm to catch around his nape, to track the outline of his jaw with the back of his wrist and tug the ends of his hair to fall fully above his eyes so he’d at least hide the mocha giveaway that screamed for the knowledge of _Shizuo_ over him with his hands thumping over the raising ribcage like a protecting veil feeling the spasm of his blood. “It doesn’t look like you’re not interested.” Izaya sighs when his hand braces around his scalp and his nails curve on the exposure of his hairlines to dig in deeply and painfully so the throb of his vein breaks under his stab; Shizuo hisses and jerks his head to the side, away from the line of his fingers pushing in his hair and then he rolls over to catch the coldness of empty sheets on his back and disintegrate the strain of his spine to the easiness of semblance.

 

Shizuo groans, the hiss of _“Fuck”_ resonating into Izaya’s own blood so when he skids his arm is to curve it on Shizuo’s shoulder over the shape of his sharp clavicle and weight his heat over him to angle both legs around his waist; his fingers tug at the pants forcefully to rip them open before Shizuo could grope his clench around his wrist and stop the movement abruptly or break the frail bone with his strength and when Shizuo does realize the fingertips skimming over his cock, he jerks and blows his eyes to widen at the darkening ceiling but he’s straining his bones to numbness and only shakes his fists into the crumbled sheets as Izaya works his waistband to slip over and his fingers to skim the nails over the flesh in already strong and quickened strokes. Shizuo gasps under him, following the bare pattern of ceiling with his whitening eyes and forces his groans into the back of his throat to shut his windpipe on an excruciating determination. Izaya blows his breath over him, feeling the warmth wash over his cheekbones from the collision above the shoulder and he hunches his head to the lines of Shizuo’s neck as every gag knocks in his own forehead, under the exposure of his pale skin and his fingers flex around him to stroke the pulling over the head and around the fast-forming cum until Izaya fumbles around his base to twirl his nails over the throbbing muscle and Shizuo groans as he lets the strain eased into his palm and marks the liquid over his fingers as Izaya pulses his speed over it like a wakening reminder of what they did.

 

Shizuo lays numb as Izaya swings his legs over to brush his hand at the sheets and stand from the bed to path the distance over to his desk to grip around one of the books and plug it open with the force vibrating in the silence. Izaya doesn’t want this; he feels an endless disgust for everything that Shizuo’s canines curved into his skin and everything that strains his muscles to the anguish desire of reaching over and slash the hard skin with his knife to see the gush of blood under the line of metal, but he still loathes for his warmth and he still reaches over with an opened palm that curves his articulations to the thumping race of his heartbeat while he rejects faintly the vindication of debauchery.

 


	14. Slayers

* * *

 

They leave at sunrise.

 

It’s a time blended into insignificance as the night shifted its shadows from the peripheral vision and shaped into a shady light throughout his sleepless night. It’s the weight lingering from Izaya’s laugh at whatever Saki tells him that pickles his skin in annoyance and when Izaya groans and tugs his head while Saki offers her mischievous grin towards himself, Shizuo takes a wakening speed outside on the wide gardens as Kida follows rigorously from behind. They do leave, officially, after an hour and Izaya skims his hand to wave over a more steady-balanced wrist in the air from Saki and a sharper blow of disgust from Kida before he ducks them in the pockets to press his attention on the woods in front and Shizuo feels his breath over his lungs as he tries to inhale softer so the sound would at least not resonate in between while Izaya is louder and hums the telltale of an old song from the back of his windpipe. “Can you smell her?” he asks as they pass the first higher trucks of trees as for the sound to spill over his words forcefully with the offering of a slightly closed space.

 

“Barely.” Shizuo snorts while he lifts his head over the endless crowd of uneven trees and when Izaya laughs is into the pit of his stomach as the frustration tightens around his muscles to vibrate the pulse around and along his vessels but Shizuo doesn’t give it too much of an importance. He’s sure if he did, it would’ve come all together with the wheezes Izaya makes when he quivers under him or when he shudders from the strain inducted to his cock or hipbone and Shizuo trembles with the rush from his body that screams a better recognition from the other as his fingers twitch with the missing heat. He resist the temptation, if he can call it that way; Izaya’s curves of body shapes his desire into a strong blow through the ribs as he stares at his back from under the coat and when Izaya turns is to catch the flush glow of a jawline barely lightened by the cold sunlight and Izaya laughs at him while he feels his eyes as piercing as hungry as they are on his flesh.

 

“How _barely_ are we talking about?” Izaya asks as he skims his bony wrist over the sweat trailing the soft curves of his forehead. Shizuo shudders at the sight of his hand moving rhythmically above his head; the blood seems to pulse harder under the skin to urge his lips in a parted plea and his fingers to shake but the encircling around the bare air of his articulations made him remember the strong and long, fastened strokes over his swollen muscle and Shizuo jerked his head to the side trying to inhale as to identify the scent as much as to breathe in the frustration occluding his windpipe.

 

“I can tell it’s in North, but not how far from us.”

 

“Kamakura is in North, you think she’s the one that killed again?” Izaya asks and turns to shift his head over the shoulder; Shizuo sees it from the side,the crock of his lips urging him like a polished magnet, but he forces his head to the right, obstructed by the darkness of the branches.

 

“I don’t fucking know.” he snaps over to the knocking air as his fists curl into a tightening clench. “Something feels wrong though..” and he narrows his eyes to view in between and over the tips of the leaves as his nostrils closed involuntary to the string and sudden scent that burns on his irked skin from inside. “ _Terribly_ wrong.”

 

Izaya snorts but he angles his head to the side and when he raises it to the higher offshoots, his lips pull into a grimace rough around the edges and then to an inhibited smile across the lines of his mouth. “It must be the _wind_.” he whispers and lifts his fingers to skim around the air further and traces his vision to the still-sunless sky. Shizuo follows more from the inducted curiosity but his hairs chill and raise as the first glimpse of shaky limbs catch the dying glimmer from his eyes.

 

Shizuo stills his footing, the heels of his boots firmly glued to the ground as his lips break on the curse of _“Fuck.”_ reverberating from his wrenched chords and when he clears his vision from the sudden and imminent blackness, the silhouettes are sharper, contoured by the shadows and balancing in the air with their necks cracked and spine bent against the blast of wind. He’d heard about the hanging forests, but visiting it along with Izaya was a clear nightmare shaped into the misperception of mutual forbearance.

 

“What happened here?” he asks in a wheeze as his words catch in the offering of trembling over his tonality but he’s shaking all over anyway and when he opens his mouth again is to resonate it to Izaya’s own head as his raven hairlines wave into the wind-line. “Why did you do this?” as the corpses shape under the wavering trees with harsher outlines and in a bigger, wider extent of numbers that hazed his vision to a blur of teary eyelids.

 

“It’s not _me_. And hunters always do that. Though I admit, this place is quite atypical, they usually choose the outskirts of the bigger towns not in the center of nowhere.” Izaya explains and when he shifts his footing is to turn fully and walk with dexterity backwards as to hold stilled the anger swarming in every trace of curving vessels. “Why, do you have _feelings_? I’m touched Shizuo-chan, even from a monster like yourself.”

 

The blow nearly smacks Izaya over the temple; Shizuo means it to be a reflex blended in anger and frustration and when Izaya jumps over his heels to twirl around and catches his weight on the scraped surface of a truck, Shizuo closes his palms around his neck to pin him under his own weight as his hipbone is felt like a blade on his own and the breath spills like burning fire into his pores. “Don’t make it as if _I’m_ the one insensible, you damned hunters are the only monsters around here.”

 

Izaya doesn’t laugh the way Shizuo anticipated he would, his eyes stared like dark dots on the pattern of his narrowed face. “No one is sensible Shizuo-chan.” he snaps and jerks his arm so his elbow would bruise deep into his chest. “Don’t tell me your _kind_ is any better, we’re just trying to survive.” and he pushes his way from his widened arms to walk under the tenebrosity shifting from under the sprawled limbs hitting softly the trucks with every collision. “We’re born murderers.” he whispers under his breath as if talking to himself but it may be the anger, or the silence around them that carry his words over into Shizuo’s earshot and grasps the torment of the words to vibrate inside his eardrums.

 

Shizuo hates agreeing with Izaya’s sharp words on a daily basis, but the truth of it cuts deep inside his rationality and over the flow of blood so when he shifts his clench from the stability of the truck is with the memory of sweet saccharine flesh and a groan that vibrates throughout his windpipe like an already known beat ringing in subconscious.

 


	15. Carnage

* * *

 

Izaya went to Kamakura before. It was in his early years of school when his sisters would fight over the fluffy stuffed bear which they’ll both end up sleeping with in a combo of small and tangled limbs or when they’d cry demanding attention from their always-spiteful bother, but those days were in the far back memory and digging up towards the surface the sharp-edged past was something Izaya doesn’t fancy with. The memories came back though--his sisters groping around his legs as they walked over the streets to step into the void and between the rows of humanity; Mairu tugging at the bags from every passing woman or bumping intentionally into the boys that catch her eye as they shifty walk around her and Kururi that whispers the soft curses towards her sister, gripping tightly to Izaya’s firm and cold hand--but what comes with greater force is the sight in front and around them, the smell and the stillness.

 

Shizuo can’t look for long; Izaya realized by now that anytime he stumbles over the sharp reality of brutality, Shizuo would always back away with the wheeze of a curse and the struggle to keep his balance on the back of his unsteady feet but Izaya wasn’t like that. It was something that came naturally to him, probably the endless times he’s seen dead bodies laying around in a pool of drying blood or maybe the _insensibility_ as Shizuo would call it for everything serious that constructed the world Izaya lives in. The place can’t be called a city anymore; a few houses are still burning and the smell around emits the sharp taste of freshly blood that surges Shizuo’s veins throbbing in instinct and his pupils to dilate even against his will until Izaya hears him smacking his hand over his forehead into the protest of keeping himself resilient to his surroundings. Shizuo would never eat from _this_ , he would rather die of starvation than drinking the blood from the people sprawled on the stained ground in the aftermath of a bloodshed, would devour his own stream within his vessels if it meant blocking the scent from entering in his nostrils and Izaya gave him a colossal credit for it because of the megalithic number of victims. Izaya’s own throat aches at the odour, the blood particles flying around themselves like birds trapped in a nanoscopic cage; people are thrown around, their bodies transfused into bitten punching bags that curled his toes with every longer glimpse; Izaya heard Shizuo gag in a restrain to keep the lingering amount of food inside his gut. Whatever it was once, the city was changed over the span of a night into a bloody battlefield as the vampires leaved no one behind and no body clean from the shapes of their massacre. Izaya is certain, now, that the threat is not shaped into the headlines of Nebula but to another unknown name, a clan yet to be discovered that poured torment and fear into the living people from around Japan and when Izaya looked over his feet to the houses and over the fumes, he caught the sight of a woman with her leg blown off inches next to her with a trail of blood and fibers connecting it to the hip as she held her mouth open in a voiceless scream and nearer, with one arm around her bigger palm, a little boy laying face-down with a visible concussion in the back of his head and his neck cracked in two as he stared still at her shocked mother with a plea contoured in the blackness of his eyes and it was all Izaya could grasp around before his whole body jerked forward so he’d spill over the muddy grass all the contains enclosed in his entrails.

 

It’s longer than he hoped it would be, the food comes from his esophagus in uncountable spasms that shake him to the core as he coughs with the still strained throat which makes his windpipe burn in an aching twinge until he feels the pressure of a palm sizing his shoulder as firm as it’s hesitant and when he turns his eyes to only view over from the corner of his eyelashes, the hunched figure speaks stronger than words as Shizuo’s face is hidden under the dark of his falling hair and the sweat around his cheekbones; his hands are shaking and Izaya knows it must be the overwhelming smell of fresh and untouched blood and the anguished desire which he gives to his mind and turn off all the other temptations for the bigger one at hand as Shizuo grabs around Izaya’s sides to feel the blood pumping under his fingertips and he slams his chest flush to Izaya’s back feeling the hyper raise of his lungs and Izaya gives in as much as his feet protest into the firm dismissal from Shizuo’s heat. It’s him that calms his breathing though; Shizuo’s the one that skims his fingers over Izaya’s spine with slow and pressed strokes and his breath warms around Izaya’s ear and lower to his exposed neck so he lets his weight to wobble into Shizuo’s arms and Shizuo lets himself absorb the closed-up sweetness from his veins that leaves him intoxicated for better so when he skids his fingers off, Izaya regains his equilibrium to fall in line with Shizuo’s glued heels onto the holes of scrappy pavement; Shizuo sighs when his hand slides full from Izaya’s spine. “What now?” he asks and forces his legs to skip over the remains of bones and bare flesh.

 

“Can you still smell her?”

 

“Haven’t for quite some time now..” he sighed again as Izaya gripped around his elbow to prevent a fall from his still trembling knees. “I think we should find a place to stay the night.” Shizuo suggests as Izaya wheezes the bark of a laugh echoing into the deadly silence.

 

“You were against them all the way here and _now_ you want to stay over the night? I understand your hunger but I’m sure you can do yourself better without long-dead meals, Shizuo-chan.” Izaya says and Shizuo has to pivot his heels and tighten his fists without smashing Izaya’s head with the blow of his steel-hard knuckles.

 

“It’s a big city.” he says in the end and as he twirls his head around he catches the outlines of a still standing and barely burned small house. He advances without thinking to reach over and lay claim to the place and to throw Izaya on the cold wooden floor as they’d step over the threshold. “We’d even probably find some back-trace to her.”

 

“ _You_ try and dig over all those corpses.” Izaya snaps annoyed as he braces a hand to the door waiting for the budge in the hinges when Shizuo forces the doorknob to bent under the curl of his fingers.

 

“Isn’t that something you do?” Shizuo asks as he drops Izaya softer than indented on the extent of a cold-leathered couch.

 

Izaya lifts his legs over the exposed cushions and angles his head to the curved handles as he draws the offering of his neck to Shizuo’s thirst. “I’m not a science madman like Shinra. Clearly you’ve spent a lot time with him and Celty, right?” he purrs as one eye cracks to the clear view the other trails over to his flesh more than the mockery of his smirk.

 

“Longer than I wished for.” was his truthful answer which Izaya felt on his own tongue and Shizuo licked the dryness from around his lips and pressed the tongue harder under his canine as Izaya smiled wider to shape on display the white teeth-full grin to Shizuo’s obliviousness.

 

“Don’t be that way, you wouldn’t have met me instead!” Izaya says and lifts his arms high above his head; his fingers still powerfully shaking and his elbows bent as if in a defensive jerk of his muscle.

 

 _“That’s right.”_ Shizuo agrees with the venom of his hatred deeply tasted over his flows but it’s said as Shizuo’s hand curls around Izaya’s own to grip recklessly around his quivering bony wrist as the smell from outside the walls dies out with Izaya’s proximity and the way his veins pump with the electricity of his thumping heart.

 

Izaya’s been to Kamakura with his family the last time; being here again with the sickening stigma of annihilation and the comfort that Shizuo gives offhandly in between spiteful words of wisdom was something Izaya never would’ve longed for--yet it seemed like everything which he feared come back to him with the vitriolic blow of reality.

 


	16. Malformed

* * *

“Don’t stand like that.” Izaya snaps from his much forward pace when Shizuo traces the bumps into dirt with shapeless precision and fists his hands around the crumbled package of cigarettes. He finished them all over the night, filling his lungs with the promise of hunger released as he watched Izaya shifting in his dreams that formed rows of sweat on the verge of nightmarish thoughts, glancing over the throbbing veins under the bright of moonlight until it made him calm with lingering sweetness implanted on his tongue. “They’re not going to jump from their grave to say hello, you know that, right?”

 

“Can’t you shut your mouth for once?” he asks when he skims his fingers through his hair and leaves it falling on the creased forehead; they buried the people from the house--a couple, most certainly, by the way they slept in a peaceful embrace. It would’ve looked normal and lovely, two lovers easing any bad thoughts from their minds as they tangled their legs together under the covers of a warm blanket, but a barrel of steel was forcefully projected over the bed, smashing the window in particles of glass and Shizuo’s unsettled by the disturbance the two must've felt before it slayed across their chests to stain the white sheets to a bleeding red. It was the least they could do; there’re too many even for Shizuo to comprehend, the limbs and bodies thrown as in a sadistic painting drawn with firmer red around the edges and in any case, Izaya wouldn’t let him even try, given the short span of time they had left to find the original target before they’d fell right into the spikes of the blood-thirsty clan. And as Shizuo gripped the steel to jerk it from their corpses, sliding outside with ease and almost fiendish-grace; when he dug the grave as Izaya watched his back muscles quivering and when he pushed them inside with the same lovestruck and barely shattered smile across their faces does Shizuo realize the clan is not even hungry, they don’t kill with a survival purpose and they torture every soul in their path like it’s the meaning behind all atrocities laid to knowledge from decades back; they’re as insensible as the hunters, slashing living beings for the fun of it, for either cursing upon the human kind or proving superiority and Shizuo’s fist curled around the anger as he crumbled the weight of his shovel under his fit of uncontrollable strength.

 

This vampires don't hang the humans in rows and rows above the ground on the outskirts of town, leaving them to move with the wind and hunch their necks further with every passing day, and they are not only stabbing through their hearts, but cutting off their limbs, biting in their skins after or even before they’d twist their heads to break the nape horizontally and for once, they sure do enjoyed it; it’s obvious in the multiple ways of killings they've left on display for the hunters to grasp around and gag over.

 

Shizuo truly didn’t wanted to be in the middle of a war.

 

“Kida said a name.” Izaya answered instead as Shizuo waved his knees to the side to follow the pattern Izaya draws with his already steady footfalls. “Dollars, you remember? Do you know anything about it?”

 

“I lived alone for _years_ , of course I’m not aware of the fucking stupid new clans.” he snaps when the scent of dried blood catches on his nostrils like in a locked safe. “Smaller clans like mine weren’t invested in such dumb fights anyway.”

 

“With a monster like yourself on frontlines?” Izaya wheezes and swings his arm to flex his fingers around the handle of his blade to shift it onwards at every stronger sound that’ll resonate in the deadly stillness like the banging of a bomb. “What a pity.”

 

Shizuo doesn’t answer to that as much as he wants to grip around his scalp and smack his head on the cold pavement--as much as he wants to encircle his hand around his lower arm and bring his wrist over to his canines in an offering of pleasure and release--but Shizuo restrains himself from his unhealthy vexations until Izaya tiptoes on a crosswalk with precision still in his legs and points proudly to a cooking store. “I bet you’ve always been jealous on _our_ food.” as Shizuo twirls his head to look over every single strawberry-baked cake or vanilla spreading tea-aroma which grew unequivocal colder. Izaya opens the doors wide and stills on the threshold, looking over the individual names before picking up the coffee bags and the bitterly tuna closed inside the icing refrigerator as Shizuo snorted behind him with the gust of annoyance.

 

“You have all that and you pick the fucking worst.” he taunted just as Izaya walked pass him with a bag full of stinky fish and the bitterness of dark coffee it’s more repulsive than Shizuo imagined, too far-off from the sweetness that hit him hard the first second in which Izaya opened the doors for them to step inside and Izaya turns sharply to stare, his head hunching above his shoulder and Shizuo nearly laughs at the plain stare which he delivers.

 

“It has protein. A lot of it, would you rather I faint with you here that sucks the blood out from me like a blowing pipe?” Izaya asks over his shoulder before pushing his boots in the ground harder to resonate around them as the silence builds up to scream in his eardrums.

 

“Better than hearing you all day.” Shizuo answers but his words are caught on the string of Izaya’s hearing as he drops the bag and swings his arm around Shizuo’s elbow. He doesn’t say anything, only pushes Shizuo to the ground with a forceful stroke that made him lose the balance to grip around the furred edge of his coat and tug it downwards until Izaya is pressing his palm over the flush of his hipbone and their hairs tangled between each other. _“What...?”_ Shizuo gasps as Izaya moves his palm to cup around his lips and hold tightly to his shoulder as to press him fully on the ground and Shizuo groans, feels his anger building inside and vibrating along his veins to harden the muscles but Izaya smacks his wrist over his forehead and shuts him again with his fingers pushing inside over the parted lips to brush his bare skin on his teeth.

 

Shizuo wanted to bite in but Izaya gripped at his bottom lip as if in a clear warning and when Shizuo finally waved his eyes over to himself, he could shape first the curves of his face reflected into Izaya’s crimson as the bleeding color darkened the outlines of his jaw and the defined swirl of his lashes before Izaya stared back in first-glance shock to veer his vision to the side and nod into a further direction. “An abnormal.” he whispers as Shizuo angles his head on his bony arm and looked over Izaya’s back and into the focus of a small and deformed young boy.

 

“What the fuck is that?” he asks as he sees the overly-weighted vampire hitting the corpses with long and slashing nails that scraped over the rotting flesh as he drinks away the lingering dried blood and tweak his head to snatch good amounts of skin in his mouth; he was eating them, Shizuo had never seen something like that before--a vampire that held his uncut nails in the squishy structure of his victim’s body to hold resistance and inflexible crests over which he’d dig over to rip them apart in a messy haul.

 

“It can sense you better if you move.” Izaya groans and presses his fingers deeper inside his mouth when Shizuo lets them part his lips to hover over his tongue in an offhand offering of sweet hedonism. “We must walk around it.”

 

“I’m a _vampire_.” Shizuo growls and it sounded muffled from his chords when Izaya shifted his head over him with the twitch of annoyance and interest craved over his glimmering eyes. “And you really don’t think I can take down a fat dude like this one?” he asks and points sharply to the area as Izaya narrowed his eyebrows over his forehead to lay claim on the hassled self-inducted nervousness.

 

“ _You_ haven’t seen one, so you don’t know what it can do.” Izaya snaps under the clenched teeth and when he shifts is to stand above him with trembling legs and tug at Shizuo’s elbow with a forceful pull and Shizuo lets himself being dragged to follow the shaky path Izaya draws around burned and damaged houses to lose themselves into the swarming smell of blood and divert their position as Izaya constantly turned over his shoulder with a fear deeply crystallized behind his eyes.

 

Shizuo wanted to yank his hand from Izaya’s closed grip, feeling the veins prickle with anticipation and loathing that pushed him to draw nearer as Izaya’s nails scraped over his skin but when he flexed his fingers was to lean them along the small flexibility that Izaya offered with whitening knuckles and interlaced them with the other’s as the pulsing grew keener, cutting through his skin like a metal blade and against the calamity around them, Shizuo felt the faintest spark of unyielding happiness as twisted and hungry-deprived it was.

 

* * *

 

“It was fucking pointless.” Shizuo snaps as Izaya drops bodily on the couch and draws his legs over the widening space before him to sigh under the weight of his wrist dangled over his forehead as sweat dumped the bony exposure of his skin. “I could’ve killed him and you know it.” as he smashes his fist into the wall nearer to burst his frustration into a fit of adrenaline and jeopardy.

 

He heard Izaya groan from the extent of the leathered couch. “Shizuo-chan, you don’t know _anything_ about that.” he rasps and throws his arm on the couch to grind his teeth and feel the gums pressing to his canines in a painful clobber. Shizuo can feel his anger throughout his strained muscles, can track the lines of throbbing veins even from his hunched position under the cover of thick material in between their bodies and when Izaya turns he sees the path of madness in his eyes as the clearer red darkened to lengths of black and his lashes drew over his eyelids like sprawled spiders. “Yakuza isn’t someone you just go over with a few blows in the head! Those things are immortal!”

 

“I’m immortal too Izaya; why would you fucking stop me, it was not a damned human and he was eating--”

 

“You’re _temporarily_ immortal, those are killing machines. Scientifically made not born like yourself.” Izaya snaps and when Shizuo draws nearer, he shifts his head to the side and blows his hairlines over his forehead to block the giveaway of his firing eyes. “It would’ve slashed through your heart before you could reach him, it has an...incredible speed.” he sighs and Shizuo feels the tiredness on his own tongue.

 

It was alluring, the way Izaya’s keen sadness could wash over Shizuo’s rationality to urge his bones in loathing and reaching over the span of inches to close a fist around his shoulder or above the scalp of his head to brush his nails, feeling the crests of veins under his fingertips and the pumping desire to break the skin slightly and gulp the sly streaming of blood. “Who’s yakuza?” he asks instead to ease the loathing and the craving to a minimum as he pushes his fingers inside the softance of the couch; “They’re not another clan, right? I’m already sick of it.”

 

Izaya laughs and angles his head to the side, his eyes blackened by the peripherally twist which he skims in his way and Shizuo feels his breath catching in his throat at the similar life-blood which his contoured eye-shades offered to the knowing flow of fresh electric shiver. “Not _vampires_ , but surely as remorseless.” he says as Shizuo draws a groan from the pit of his windpipe to wash over his frail jawline. “They’re a special group of hunters, dating older than any other human anti-vampire organisation.” Izaya explains and twirls his knife over the extend of his spreading fingers. “They’re known for their experiments. They were promising at first but when the procedure became brutal, the other hunters isolated them so they were forced to grew an underground league, nobody knows for sure where they are or what they do, but luckily you’re paired up with the awesome informant that _I_ am.” he says and shifts his knife to cut through the leather cushions and drag it down in a one-long slash to spill the cotton over his lap.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shizuo asks when he presses his hip into the couch to feel the coldness emerging under the hem of his shirt. Shizuo asked by pure interest, a deeply sharpened delusion of normality constructed in his tone when he hummed simulacrum of comfort throughout his teeth as Izaya grunted and shifted so his hair would fully cover the blank stare stabbing behind his eyes.

 

“I once tried to find their track.” Izaya says and it’s strangulated as much as his fingers pump with the strain of flexed bones around the harden metal handle until the traces of steel would implant on his skin to leave big tattooed marks in circular curves. Shizuo could stare at it, the blinding blade shining in sparkles as the weak light from outside blended into the structure and the blood around his palm was clearer from under the protection of trimmed coating, every pulse dragged rapidly around his knuckles and Shizuo could feel it on his own fingers--his own flow over the velvety fingertips whenever the image reversed to taste as the sweetness would leave a strong pattern in his flows similar to the streaming smoke of his cigarettes. “But once you know about their experiments, you’re bound to experience them firsthand.” Izaya said and it slams Shizuo strenuously to reality.

 

“You mean that you--”

 

“Not me. My sisters.” he says and the flex around his knife goes numb to slip in from under the tensed fingers to brush them over and around his hair and tug silently at the lines while his nails scraped the base of its roots. “I was assigned to a homicide case. There was so much blood I couldn’t believe we had only two corpses, then I saw their faces and... They were fourteen at the time, I first thought it was a prank but Kururi always hated being part of something involving hunting. They drugged the abnormal themselves, probably after they had enough fun watching it eating from.. “ his voice quivered and Shizuo saw the intertwined fingers trembling forcefully within the strain of his palms pressing flush to each other and then Izaya sighed and jerked his head so the hair would messily crumble the giveaway of his eyelids. “The thing is.” he gasped as Shizuo shut his mouth from an unstably formed consolation that burned around the even depths of his windpipe to spill out and Shizuo thought it might be telepathy--the way Izaya broke off the current of mumbling for the firm conclusion of his own roundabouts: “Only a special drug can kill those things. If you cut their limbs, it’ll either grew back or function without, cutting through chest results in nothing giving the fact they don’t have a heart and the hunger mechanism is impossibly gruesome, you’ve seen it. It kills humans and vampires alike, and don’t even think about being fooled by their small appearance, they’ll rip you apart no matter what they look like.”

 

“I’ve never seen one..”

 

"That’s because they’re yakuza propriety if you could call it like that. They’ve invested in those for years, wherever yakuza is, there’s bound to be a pack of malformed killing machines, that’s how it’s always been.” Izaya says, pushing his hair to line up on his eyes and to feel Shizuo’s fingertips warming around his shoulder blade; too far for physical contact but close enough to feel the heat of it firsthand. 

 

Shizuo sighed in his back and the sound vibrated on his eardrums, tickled along his spine to curve his vertebrates under skin and catch the wheeze of it on his nape; “So we’re close to yakuza, then?”

 

Izaya trembled at the thought, his blood chilling with the idea to shape Shiki’s face on his own vision and the tugged smirk on half his face. “I hope not.” he said when he pushed himself to fall on the cushions scraped on his back. “It’s been _years_ since I last heard of their movements but something tells me it’s not shaped in the brighter colors.”

 

Shizuo could see his shuddering shoulders, the way Izaya breathed way-over-shakenly as the rasps convulsed his body into sharp spasms and when he closed a hand around his locks to twirl them around and feel the satiny of his hair, Izaya relaxed and leaned over the leather to press on the cold cotton in between with the illusion of touching skin-on-skin so when Shizuo said _“We’ll work this out.”_ it purred over their ears like a forced vow signed with keen knifes and whetted canines.

 


	17. Knocked-out

* * *

 

Izaya doesn’t like the scenery.

 

Kamakura was a city craved in his early-childhood memories, when his sisters were alive and laughing, chasing each other on the length of widen streets and around joyful residents and when the vampires made their appearance merely around the smaller villages. It stopped all together; the calmness and normality from which Izaya could view around and over the crowd with the prickles of anticipation swarming from inside--it all shaped the curvature of calamity when Kamakura was attacked for the first time. It’s a hitting point, a city on headlines over the multiple hunting camps, and Izaya along with his sisters never came back as he enrolled under the prediction of imminent adrenaline overrunning through his veins with every slash he drove over a hardened skin but he remembered how the city looked like, how every kink felt as they walked pass it and the smell lingering in air from freshly baked bread or the sushi laid on display at the corner-shops. Kamakura was nothing like before; the residents were rotting on the streets and the houses turned roughly into ashes under his eyes and Izaya blended the sadness in his frustration over Shizuo’s in-depth fixation to bury as many as it’s possible. It should’ve been expected, Izaya knows the vampire burns with anger upon unnecessarily murders; that his fists drive the outlines of his veins as the throb to break the thick skin. And he knows he can’t oppose to it whenever Shizuo grunts from the extent of the couch as he twirls his fingers around his knee to stop the trembling and to gape disorientation as he’d turn to roar out the _“When the fuck are we leaving?”_ to which Izaya bluntly offers _“When you feel the scent again, Shizuo-chan.”_ or whenever Shizuo lingers on streets with a shovel gripped tight in his hold with the fever of penitence as he digs wider holes and drops enough bodies to cover up the ground themselves before he swings his shovel with the remaining dirt, enough to messy their torn clothes and pale skins.

 

Izaya wasn’t like that, and Shizuo hated it. It wasn’t that he was remorseless or that he felt no sign of empathy washing in his rationality; it was a dark world and Izaya choose to go dark along with it.

 

Shizuo is paging through a book when he comes in with a pressure added on the threshold wood to make his presence known to the tense arch in the other’s spine but Shizuo doesn’t turn around as much as to lay claim over Izaya’s piercing gaze to his back. He curved though, hunched over the book as he leaned on his knees from his aged chair and Izaya can see the shapes of his hairlines dipping over his nape when he advances further; seeing Shizuo’s neck bent as low as the very tip of his vertebrae could be shaped under his skin like a blade’s curve. He shifts the pages roughly, the sound of every page individually screaming as Shizuo turns them to the higher side of the book in a clear sign of indifference and frustration and he doesn’t lift his head over to himself, not even for the voicing of a rhetorical question thrown over about Izaya’s absence or for the stare burning his skin even whilst reading the black dots on white paper so Izaya takes the action in his own hands as he steps in his back to breathe over his spine and see the minimal hairs raise with the friction. Izaya presses a hand around his shoulder in an offhand possessiveness rather used while the metal handle of his knife would be held forcefully in his spread fingers and Shizuo jerks at the touch to turn sharply to the shadow-black hair that tips over Izaya’s forehead. “Do you still don’t smell anything?” he asks and it sounded rasped and attentiveness along with the burn in his eyelids and the glow of darkened-glimmer that shapes his hair-covered eyes.

 

Shizuo grunts at the question and when he moves is to shut the book forcefully and slam it on the floor as his muscles tensed and he swirls on the chair to reach with an arm around the backrest, and Izaya still holds to him, his fingers dig deeper under his skin when Shizuo hisses at the pressure. “It’s impossible. Too many fucking traces in this town.” he growls as Izaya huffs the sharpness of a laugh to his eardrums.

 

“I must say, your monstrous powers are not so fearsome after all, if you can’t do _one_ thing straight.” Izaya says in an offering of mockery and watches as Shizuo’s pupils grew darker with the madness that he holds still inside. He’s staring over to Izaya’s face, quivering his vision so he’d tape the pattern of his features on his brain but when he opens his mouth is to smirk derision in his way and purrs _“Your orgasm proves differently.”_ and it’s Izaya’s turn to blank his stare and widen his irises to ghoulish-stricken shock. He snaps his hand as if burned, feeling the touch still lasting on his fingertips and Shizuo’s smirk stretches to a smile moulded by white teeth and sharp canines.

 

“We’re not gonna talk about your blood obsession.” Izaya draws out just as his footfalls land backwards to skim over the floor in a wobbly balance.

 

“It’s not _obsession_ , I live with it.” Shizuo said while he tasted the course on his tongue to vibrate along Izaya’s veins in a retrospect of dolorous. “You should thank me I didn’t drunk from you these days, I’m _starving_.” Shizuo growls and he knows it’s true--he can barely see clearly when he’s pushing the shovel on the ground to scrape at the dirt and fill the holes back in, or when his desire forms a bellyache at the sight of old blood on the pavement but Shizuo holds his restriction, pushing back the obsessive thought of food in addition to Izaya’s blood pumping through his veins or Izaya’s curving wrist as it flexes to move the knife in his fingers until Shizuo’s too intoxicated with the image and the reminder of a high full-voiced moan that’ll crack under him like the drug of a strange addiction.

 

“I wouldn’t have given it to you.” Izaya says but it sounded weak even to his own ears and he grimaces at the hidden meaning as his tongue shaped the offering of painful pleasure coursing through his system. It’s indescribable, not the symptoms nor the pain deep downcast to his heart could be given a meaning or rational interpretation so Izaya blends with the shadows of the corner as he sinks his shoulder blades into the wall and hangs his head to protect his quivering mouth from Shizuo’s amused eyesight.

 

“You would’ve. And you know it.” Shizuo wheezes as Izaya hears the legs of the chair scrape on the floor. It might’ve been the lingering fear or the denial of the present and of the anticipation that makes Izaya push open the door with a twist up-sharply on the doorknob and storms outside on the darkness of nightfall.

 

He thinks Shizuo might follow--might push his way bodily through the cracked door as he shouts for recognition and reaches for Izaya’s arm with the satisfaction of a finally warm and fresh meal but Shizuo doesn’t. It’s quiet and the stillness around calms Izaya fully as his legs still throb from the strain in his ankles and Shizuo remains in the house like the ever-present ogre in the shadows.

 

It’s so silent around himself that Izaya can barely hear the friction on the pavement and he tilts his head to view in the darkness the glimmer of a weapon trailed on ground and a shadow standing where it shouldn’t be as it grew bigger and closer to shape its curves for his shady vision. It smiles, even from afar. The lips are stretched painfully on the cheeks and the canines are sharper than Shizuo’s, sharper than anything Izaya’s ever seen that pickles his veins to chillness and struck the blood in a steady pulse. It comes closer when Izaya sees it and it’s too fast to move before the blow hits the side of his head and Izaya feels his spine colliding with the cold earth as his tongue still articulates the vowels of _“Shizuo!”_ screamed in fear as much as hopelessness as Izaya feels his body run cold under the thumping of footfalls and the striking of a door from its hinges.

 


	18. Obsession

* * *

 

Shizuo’s hands are bound to each other. He can feel the metal strings stabbing through his skin and under the wrist-bone and there’s a friction of coldness from the cupped handcuffs that hold resistance around his arms, the chillness spreading through his pulse and into his veins but there’s heat too, faintly and slippery, and when he moves his thumb over it, it feels like the soft structure of flesh that brings back the memory hazed in his head with Izaya’s moaning and whining under him and with that one stroke, his nostrils pick up the scent hitting him full-forced in the head. It’s the same scent he felt under Izaya’s persisting wish and the same that stung the air on the night before their meeting but it’s a barely feeling which Shizuo chooses to ignore when Izaya’s blood sweeps throughout the toxic air so Shizuo snaps his eyes open to a burning pain striking his eyelashes and the scenery is black and further blackness.

 

Izaya is behind, Shizuo can realize that much. His skin is hot to the touch and his veins strangled along his arm from the tight knot around his wrists and Shizuo thinks he’s still knocked out, that Izaya still has the trail of streaming blood on the side of his face enveloping the curve of his cheekbones and slipping through his parted lips on the cry with offhand desperation of help from Shizuo himself--his body jerked at the sound at that time, at the acidity that Izaya offered in his scream and the brutal smack of metal on flesh and Shizuo’s heart skipped over the ribcage as his feet moved on instinct to reach and bang the door to protect whatever the sound might’ve implied--but when he shifts his head to at least attempt and look at Izaya from peripheral, to know if he’s still breathing, it’s Izaya’s voice that hits his ears faster, muffled at first by the ringing and cleared further as Shizuo allows the friction of his words to settle in like pieces of puzzle. He’s fast whilst speaking, or maybe Shizuo’s blood runs quicker than normal, absorbing the normal flow of sounds hitting in the earshot, but the voice that droves clearer and sharper is not Izaya’s mockery or his tout from pursed lips and from around a sly smirk but a feminine voice, razor-sharp around the edges and higher than Shizuo was ever prepared for as the scratch of her words cut deep the still headache pounding inside him and it gets all overly coherent when the tip of a sword hits the crock of his neck to a biting friction.

 

 _“--your friend woke up.”_ was all he could decipher and it craved the veins to an uncontrollable throbbing at the sharp offering of friendship but the blade slid closer to his chin in a shift to raise his head to the blank ceiling and any groan of annoyance died out for the following high-pitched words. “What should we do with you? I mean ordinary humans are nothing but _hunters_ …” as the sword traced on his jawline and lower to the neck bone. “I have something special for them.”

 

Shizuo was caught in between the force of hardened skin under the slashing razor and the headache deeply curving inside. He couldn’t think normally as much as he wanted to and when Izaya’s voice ringed in his ears it was like a blow thrown in his ribs with a pain so loathed he could feel the tension knots loosened from his muscles. “He’s not a hunter.” he said and Shizuo thought any other words would get his neck cut open. “That one’s a _monster_.”

 

 _“Oh?”_ the girl sighs in a decisive regret. “Do you really think you can fool me?” and the blade slides off fully from his skin to leave the slim mark itch in the coldness of the small room but Shizuo doesn’t relax, especially when the metal clings with the side of his chair and turns upwards to what he believes is the crock of Izaya’s head that’ll offer a wider opening as if anticipating the movement or shifted as soon as the vampire voiced her frustrated interest. “Hunters don’t make such _friendships_ with the different ones.”

 

“I’m no fucking hunter!” Shizuo snaps more so he’d catch her attention to drift her blade from Izaya’s soft skin. It stung when he moved and when he strains his muscles to twirl the metal around his wrists in a struggle of breaking, he hears the faintly ruffle of chains around him while he tugged at them and enclosed his fingers to the hard surface that’ll leave the marks of burning metal on his fingertips. It’s easy to break them after that, even with his painful headache and his frustration shaped a deeper strength into his muscles. When Shizuo pulled at his arms, the chain teared from his flesh in a shattering bomb of metal pieces thrown on the floor as Shizuo raised on his feet with steady legs and glued footfalls to turn around; “Might be careful, metal can fatally hurt us.”

 

The girl is hunched over Izaya, her blood-red eyes shining as a newly bloodshed battlefield, with shadows over the length of her eyebrows and around the center part of her face to pull the smile higher than originally shaped and Shizuo clearly sees the canines build to lean on her exposed chin. Her dark and long hair was messily pulled on her forehead, the hairlines sticking in her eyes and mouth but she was laughing rather than brushing them off; her laugh was sadistic and powerful, rougher and hair-chilling. _“Strength.”_ she screamed at once, hitting the nail through the head and swirling her sword from Izaya’s neck as the other looked back to Shizuo. He treated him, though, as nonexistent in the span of their vague room. “Love strength, power, power, you-- _love you_!” the girl repeated as she twirled on her heels with eyes blown-open for the sight of Shizuo’s face over which it crawled the turbulences of trepidation.

 

Her voice kept shouting following the chord of a mad-song and over it, Izaya’s stare was searing and burning on his skin like the grinding of Izaya’s lips would feel; it stung on his bones until the agony blended throughout his pores, but Shizuo doesn't push aside the innuendo of  _not_ liking it. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Izaya hears her laughing like the roaring of machine-gun. It’s high-pitched but also expensed on the countered lines of madness that slips with every breath she takes to blow another fit of exaggeratedly enthusiasm that swirls her arms to swing her sword in the thirst of forecasted truth; she screams _“He’s a vampire, what a strength, love—love him, I_ love _you.”_  and it stung through his heart like the stabbing of a steel cutting throughout his spine horizontally to leave him breathless and dazed to Shizuo’s glare from over the extent of the room.

 

It’s longer than Izaya can grasp around the timeline when Shizuo growls low enough to reach and crumble her words, twisting them around his spiteful retorts in order to end the continuous rambling and the dangerously wide circles drew in between with her sword. “Do you _want_ to die?” Shizuo warns and Izaya feels the caution tapped securely around his bones as they ached over the penetrating sound. The girl stops for a heartbeat on her twirl as her head tips around to angle above her shoulder and to look at Shizuo in the eyes--she’s shocked, or rather stoned, Izaya would say; her mouth hanged open for her enormous canines to brush her chin to blood and her hair is messier and ruffled around her forehead in a rough curtain of dried-wet hairlines. She moves fast though, dodging the propounding of a fight breaking unfold as she turns fully and smiles to Shizuo with lips reddish and burned along her cheeks.

 

“Why would I?” she taunts when the weight of her sword’s blade collides with the flooring and Izaya can see her shape from his side, the black-curved back that hunches heavenly on the unsteady support. “We must cooperate with each other, I don’t see why you’d recline this. Is it because of _him_?” she asks and Izaya sees the blade shining at the sudden jerk when the tip of it hits nearly inches away from his nose. He isn’t sure if the additional footing are her heels tapping in excitement over the wet floor or Shizuo’s legs protesting to the self-inducted pacing in his lower muscles to shift closer. “Takashi always told me that vampires have weak tenderness, you’re going to forget him faster than you think!” she said with sharper emphasis on the unfamiliar name. Izaya couldn’t see her from behind the blinding strike of her sword pointing to himself, her grasp was steady and firm which made the blade as hard as a tree branch, close and dangerous that pushed Izaya to a wish for reaching with the opened palm around it and shift it downwards, though his hands were still tucked together in his back with harsh metal strings and the itching was too unnerving for him to move out from the sprain. “Surely, he loves me. He’ll love me forever and ever and ever! It’s in the bones, sharing blood is pure love but you won’t feel any remorse. I didn’t! And he still waits for me in our room, as always.” she draws and when Izaya shifts, she brings the sword flush to his neck in a stronger pressure that breaks the blood under it to stream slowly on the curve of his clavicle. Shizuo hisses, probably from the smell, the intense hit of powerful scent staining the path to his nostrils but there’s something more to it--a frustration he voiced through the clenched teeth and grinding muscles and when Izaya looks over her shoulder to the dark-lit corner, Shizuo’s eyes shine around the shadows with the headlines of anger flowing in the narrowed giveaway.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shizuo groans lowly as every letter stains with the over-spilled anger and impatience when the girl laughs to spit on Izaya’s clothes and swings her blade from his flesh. “Look at the blood!” she offers while tugging a fist in Izaya’s hair to cut through his scalp with her nails. “Isn’t it alluring? That’s all they are. Food! And you’ll have plenty of it, better than his!” she screams fully in Izaya’s ears as he looks over to the narrowing forehead on Shizuo’s features, to his pulled-down grimace and the ache in his muscles. “Join the Dollars and you can have it all!” she expanses with her arms thrown around the air as the still clenched fist jerks along with Izaya’s sharp shift of his head with a flexed muscle that opens his wound wider for the blood to steam faster and deeper, soaking the hem of his dark shirt.

 

It’s not really a surprise when Shizuo wants to answer with the negation already spilling from his tongue; Izaya knows Shizuo’s absorbed by the toxicity of his blood. That their briefly touches are as painful as the irresistible string which they feel whether it’s when Shizuo closes a hand around his wrist to snap it forcefully to his teeth or when Izaya offers the paleness under his shirt like an open invitation to his and Shizuo’s combined hunger, but Shizuo stops mid-way on the _‘N—’_ as if he reconsidered the promise of endlessly streams of blood and Izaya nearly shatters at the thought before he can track Shizuo’s vision to his own. It’s insensible at first; the plug of a needle on his spine but the intensity of Shizuo’s stare makes him hyperaware of the touching along his vertebrates so when he shifts, the vampire pushes it inside to sink deeper in his skin. Izaya feels his spine arch at the feeling and trembles to leave the obnoxious sound of his sudden weeping.

 

 _“Izaya—”_ Shizuo starts but stops when the girl twirls the knife inside and swings it out with the speed of a gun firing.

 

“You even bring a hunter to us, you’re truly a gold mine! I love you, I love you, _I love you!_ ”

 

Izaya feels his muscles going numb around his spine, his arms could barely shake from their cuffed angle and his legs trembled with the lingering pain still itching on the slash sunk above his aching back with a ferocity that felt as if he was cut open and left bare under the keen twist of her knife. Shizuo knows he can not deny now. She’ll kill him, that’s one think he realized. Even faster than he could comprehend and for his legs to bent with the intake of a jog towards the razor projectile to block the imminent and close-bitten stab through Izaya’s neckline, so Shizuo groaned and pivoted his heels for a better support as he looked into the blood-life of her burning eyes. “Alright.” he says then to stop the garrulous insanity storming out from her widely-open chords. The vampire stops, her knife loosen on the structure of his chin to drag under the skin and Izaya could see now his eyes brightening, reflected into Shizuo’s own eye-glimmer. “I’ll do it but with one condition.” he says and submits to the reaching area around Izaya to grasp around his aching shoulder. “He’ll live.”

 

Izaya hears the vitality in his tone, the sharpness of his tout burning on his tongue and the emanated coldness through his wound, but his heart still loathes with the frivolous heat of quickened beating.

 


	19. Possessive

* * *

 

It’s cold when Izaya wakes up.

 

The chillness surges through his veins like the biting of needles--slow, quick and venomous--and when he tries to move, there’s a strong restrain in the back of his spine that comes all the way up to his lower half so he tips his head on his knees to feel the bones stab at his cheeks and ease at least temporarily the itching. He remembers it all, the pain that broke inside him as the vampire sunk the knife in his spine and the way his legs twitched with sudden paralysis creeping upwards to the strain of his fingertips. He still feels the lingering numbness in his legs, the striking pain in his back is worse though, and Izaya had bruises and wounds deeply shaped on his skin but it was never as painful; he couldn’t even stop himself from voicing the agony to Shizuo’s face in sign of helplessness. He smacked the back of his head with his knuckles, half testing the sensibility still flowing normally within his system and half punishing himself for his weakness; Shizuo would clearly mock him for it, he’ll break the leash around his neck formed by a contrived contact and turn the blade straight up to Izaya’s head but it’s an idea craved with the illusion of possessiveness and the force of Shizuo’s fingers on his hipbone so when the door opens, Izaya doesn’t react to the sound nor the shape of it, barely disturbed by the light behind the bars.

 

He comes closer, passing the few caged rooms to lean over the steeled bars and Izaya can clearly see him when he shifts to raise his head over his knees, the look in Shizuo’s eyes darkened with annoyance and something Izaya can’t decipher clearly in his still hazy state. He moves though, forces himself to show no more weakness than he already did and when he circles the handlebars in his palms, he bumps forcefully on the iron to hold his legs stuck to the floor. “I’m quite vulnerable right now Shizuo-chan, surely you don’t want to prove your strength when we’re at least somewhere _close_ to equal?” he asks and the words imprint on the bars before Shizuo could hear the faint mumbling.

 

He groans and narrows his eyes on the tip of Izaya’s shady hair as he braces his own stronger and larger hands around the steel to feel his skin burning at the touch and lean over to catch the telltale of Izaya’s breathing. “How do you feel?” he asks softer than Izaya had ever heard--had ever imagined Shizuo’s voice could be--and he has the ill-defined certainty that he speaks with another human.

 

“Remember when I told you about experiments?” Izaya says instead as he shifts his head to brush the cheek on the bar and crack his eyes for Shizuo’s direct vision, too closer than he anticipated but too further for him to trace the individual puffs of air from his parted mouth into the coldness of the prison cell. “This might be one of it.”

 

“Do you think she _drugged_ you?”

 

“I don’t _think_ , I know.” Izaya sighs as one hand skims over his lower back to the swallowed flesh and the opening left by the cut along his spine. “It feels wrong.”

 

“That’s because you’ve been _stabbed_ , Izaya.” Shizuo groans, bringing more force into his clenched fists. The metal protested to the resistance with soft cracks. Izaya laughs at him, feeling the bitterness of his tone washing over his mouth and around his windpipe.

 

“I’ve been stabbed before, that’s _nothing_ like it. It must’ve been something on the blade…” but he’s drifting off and his legs wobble under him until Shizuo holds him still with one hand pushing through the handlebars. Izaya can’t see the look on his face, the confusion and worry alike forming a pattern along the still-harsh annoyance in his veins and at the stroke of the contact, Izaya shutters, his lips opened with the inflection of a gasp diluted into his flows so when he knocks his head on the steel he’s sure Shizuo hadn’t heard any of it. “What have you seen? Are you happy with your choice; you know they killed the whole Kamakura, right?”

 

“I fucking _know_.” Shizuo groans when his hold grows more firmer with the reminder alone. “That girl is a psychopath, she has a dead man on her bad.”

 

“They’re vampires, I don’t see why--”

 

“No vampire sleeps with dead bodies. Fuck, no vampire has _sex_ with dead bodies. And there’s this whole preparation for some fucking shit, a dinner or something.” Shizuo says and Izaya could taste the disgust on his tongue whenever Shizuo’s breath hits him on the back of his neck.

 

“You should be happy, they’re throwing a party in your honor!” he taunts and when he looks up it's with a forced mockery on his lips that stretched along his cheeks and Shizuo holds back the pounding fist to the bar rather to the structure of his jawline; it would be difficult to punch through the handlebars in any case.

 

“It’s for both of us.” he growls and slides his hand off from his shoulder when Izaya found the stability in his legs again. 

 

“They’re having a party for a _hunter_?” Izaya asks cynical when his eyes glued to Shizuo’s falling hair and the curve of his dry lips. “Are you sure?”

 

“That’s what Haruna told me.” Shizuo clarifies and Izaya hears the strain in his voice and the jerk at his question of “Who’s Haruna?” to which Shizuo answers in deep, low anger with: “The one that stabbed you.”

 

“You mean the one that sung her love confession to you.” Izaya jokes as he leans for a better view to Shizuo from behind the iron-bars and within the blackness of the room. Shizuo hisses and turns to punch into the hard-cold barrels of steel on the opposite cell and Izaya points his chin to the coldness and shifts his face to catch the hunched arc in Shizuo’s back, the muscles easily shaped under his shirt and his legs pressed into the floor as his muscles strained from under the layer of clothing. “It’s fascinating how that strength of yours could push someone to such enthusiasm.”

 

“Like you don’t like it.” Shizuo draws back when he shifts to offer the hint of a smile on his lips that curved along the canines to bruise faintly at the bottom lip. Izaya catches his breath before he could say anything else, looking at Shizuo as the other eased the tension with the piercing stare they both offered to each other and when he moved was to reach over and lean on the bars again, his hands bracing around Izaya’s own as his thumb shifted on the flesh to a softening stroke. “Don’t strain yourself until then.” he tells him and Izaya had the impression that Shizuo leaned his head as well, that the curve of his jawline tipped to angle above the steeled iron so Izaya succumbs to it with half-lit eyes poking his tongue into the inner cheek, but Shizuo breaks the connection and huffs a breath over his face before he storms out with the door banging in his wake.

 

It’s long after that when Izaya could still feel the warmth of his breath on his cheek, could taste his cologne on his tongue and Izaya is blinded by the sudden intensity with which he wants to reach over and dig his nails in Shizuo’s skin, to mark his offhand possession on his own flesh.

 


	20. Butterflies

* * *

 

Izaya’s never been to a fancy ball.

 

It wasn’t something he necessarily wished for--it would’ve been interesting, seeing the shifts and complexity the other humans showed around with a lifted tone in the offhand attempt to impress younger girls or the loud laughing under a timid hidden-façade--but Izaya was forced into the tight silk uniform and urged to step over the rubbed iron and the tiles of steel to reach for the prison’s strangulating escape and breathe in with earnest the aroma of clear air. Even if it stung with the stream of blood painted in the walls shifting the trail like smoke to the dinning room.

 

“Our Lord is not usually so benevolent.” Haruna says to his back as he touches the doorknob to the wide rooms in a brushing friction, her hands grabbing at his side above the covered wound to press her fingertips in a sudden numb-spreading soreness. “You’d better behave or I swear me and Takashi will have a great time killing you.”

 

Izaya nods and turns to offer a rhetorical affirmation, but the vampire speeds her footing further and on the high-lined stairs. Izaya grunted and pushed on the handle with a lingering strain in his muscles. The ballroom is wide and shaped into golden ornaments, the table laid before him shining with the food on display for both their kinds and Izaya’s mouth waters at the sight of freshly tuna served on a silver tray and a high-class sake already poured in small shots to be gulped with one stroke. He sees Shizuo in the corner, his bleached hair glowing more in the light of candles and he turns as Shizuo lifts his arm to offer the unvoiced greeting, capitulating all of Izaya’s symptoms to a hazy memory. “Shizuo-ch--” he starts but the name dies on his tongue when he catches the smaller figure beside him. His back angled for a leaning position in the air, with his hands folded behind and one foot softly tapping on the surface. “Evening.” he says and Izaya detects the muffled sounds coming from behind the white mask around his face. It covers his whole features, only shifty giving the sight of blue eyes and a curve of his upper lip until he pivots his boot on the floor to get closer and braces a hand around his shoulder. “Orihara Izaya? I’m pleased to meet you.” He shows the paleness of his palm to the exchange of a handshake that Izaya accepts, feeling the stream of blood colder and stilled on his wrist. It’s stranger than feeling Shizuo’s chilly blood-- _his_ was heating to the touch, almost spreading the warmth through his system even via illusion--but those veins were even bluer than normal, almost deeply violet and Izaya braced his fingertips to cut the skin with his nails. It didn’t do anything, the vampire emitting the same calmness as if oblivious to the drops of blood on his wrist, or untouched by the itching.

 

“I’m Ryuugamine Mikado.” he touts and the curve barely visible drives upwards in a hidden smile. “Welcome to Dollars.”

 

Izaya frowns at the sight of it, of a teenager keeping in control the flow of precise killings and never-ending fear among humanity and when he nods to smile he catches Shizuo’s eyes with a grave intensity that forces him to look up. Shizuo opens his mouth on an articulation, beginning the call for assistance from Izaya so he’d pass the space to lean next to Shizuo’s bigger silhouette and hear the purr of his rasped voice on his hairlines, but Mikado tugs at his hand first to bring them at the table and pushes him bodily on the hard chair. “I’ve already talked with your friend, how did you find each other?” he asks eagerly while he slides on the higher throne-like chair to raise from the ground and look into his own eye-level. “It’s always interesting hearing about vampire-human relations.”

 

Izaya hears Shizuo grunt in his back and the blow of his fist through the door resonates in the echo of the room. He turns in time to see the handle brought in place by friction, Shizuo’s presence and the heat of his body gone. The air grew chilly with the weight of Mikado’s fixated stare on himself. “It’s nothing fascinating about it.” Izaya says with a certainty tapped on his tongue. “I met him in a hunting camp while I was alone. Given the place, I thought a vampire might help me get my track back on a lost vampire, so I told him I’d turn him in if he doesn’t. So we’re here now.” Izaya says and twirls his hands in the space to smile widely as he reaches for the closest tuna. He wipes his fingers on his tongue, feeling the bitterness perfectly embodied to his flows.

 

“You’re quite close though..” Mikado purrs and leans, bracing his palm around the golden cup fully filled with the scent of toxic iron. “In our culture there’s a legend.” he says before placing the rim of his cup to the small line-shaped cut on his lips, soaking his mouth and the chin of his mask to red dripping on the table. “A legend about a vampire and a man falling in love. The vampire was the most beautiful creature on earth, graceful and wise. She never killed, kept saying that humans were cursed to live around us and pitied every one of them.”

 

“That sounds nice.” Izaya said as Mikado stopped to wipe the lingering remains of liquid from his chin. 

 

“It does. And it gets better. She saved one boy from drowning.” he laughed with joy craved on his tonality and when he moved, Izaya could see how the depths of his ocean eyes glowed with vigorous fire. “The boy was small, but older enough to remember her. He dreamed of her and searched for her but she never appeared again. The villagers called him crazy and delusional, a lunatic that deserved to be burned alive on a stick, so he run away from home to live in the forests, hoping maybe she’ll come for him again. One day, she did; he sung to the sky to bring her back, and she finally listened.” He stopped to trail his fingers around and fumble with the hem of a handkerchief, his nails bright red with the few dribbles of blood from his chin, pulling the material to tear it in pieces.

 

“So they lived happily ever after?” Izaya mocks in the back of his throat as the fourth tuna slipped from his fingers into the wetness of his mouth.

 

 _“No.”_ Mikado screams and bangs his fist to the table, his wrist crested with the veins under his skin and his shoulders trembled from under the protection of his black coat. Izaya could see the shimmer of white from behind the mask, a quivering white obstructed by the redness of his lips as Mikado cracked his mouth in a wide smile. “The vampire _killed_ him. It ripped him apart, tearing his flesh, his bones, his spine; cutting his brain in half to mutilate every individual feature on his face and when she was done and he was no longer screaming, she drunk him--ate him, flesh and bones alike leaving nothing but wet-stained grass. So you see?” he asked and turned to look him in the eyes again. The white from around his irises traced by lines of red and his pupils dilated to blackness that stabbed through his own vision until the string was too close and passing over intimacy and Izaya looked downwards, feeling the bitter fish taste creeping on his windpipe. “There’s no such thing as love between our kinds! It’s all war and war and _war_.” he said and leaned on the armchair as Izaya slid off from his own. “I’m just explaining why I’m going to kill you.” Mikado laughs and turns with the force of his arm around his chair to tug it in a circular move and Izaya closes his chords for the wheeze of sudden air caught inside his lungs. He runs and stops only after he pushes open the front doors, stepping into the wide gardens. 

 

He relaxes on the back of cold concrete, feeling it refreshing the shape of his tension to a thudding reminder in the back of his head and when he opens his eyes he can see the blond coming closer to himself with such speed that Izaya can’t think clearly again. Shizuo moves faster to reach over to him and Izaya tries to slide from the wall, haunted by the recollection that stung to his soul and poisoned his lungs but Shizuo is faster, reaching for the neck and holding resistance even when Izaya whines at the pull. He prepares for a cracked skull on the cold floor or teeth sinking in his neck too forcefully and ripping, granted by sustained hunger so it'll rip his head off to roll in the same way it did with their host. The collision comes around his lips however, parted on another intake of air and his eyes closed tightly at the friction of Shizuo’s dryness to his own fresh, sake-intoxicated wetness. Shizuo’s the first to move, his tongue sweeping through his lips to trace the curve of his own, to lick the scent of alcohol from his flows and bruise his bottom lip with his canines. He kisses softly and slowly, with precision on every pull and up-drag so it won’t cut through his lip or force his unmoving tongue to his throat. By the time Izaya eases his fists to lift them around his vest and close his lips to Shizuo’s intense touch, the friction is gone like the shatter of a butterfly and Shizuo hovers over him with his caramel eyes warmed by the reflecting moonlight in a glassy color from which he can pinpoint the edges of his own face--soft blinking confusion and the striking of arousal. “We must leave.” Shizuo says when his hand falls to caress on Izaya’s cheekbone and curve the shape of it on his fingertip.

 

Izaya grabs the hem of his shirt instead of answering, twisting the material in between his knuckles to bring Shizuo flushed on his own skin and to feel the breath from his windpipe enclosing to his own when their lips connect again. Izaya allows the pleasure and the shudder in his bones to lay claim of his rationality for at least one short beat of a struck-time.

 

Vampires weren’t similar with the urban legends spread around the villages to whisper them on the verges of night. Their eyes aren’t bleeding red, the life-blood of the imaginative carmine was only selectively present to the upper classes instead of the vast majority, the colors shifting from black to piercing blue but always glimmering with the brightness enveloping their irises to blinding shades that’ll darken whenever the stream of blood would catch on the nostrils. Izaya knew that very well--he saw the mocha caramel contoured by immeasurable shadows at the electric scent of his blood--and it always pickled under his skin to ache his veins in powerful anticipation. Vampires weren’t burned under the blinding sun, except when it sparkles with the heat of summer on the direct giveaway of their skin to curl their coldness with insufferable calefaction.

 

Shizuo was cold to the touch, but even under the sharp feeling of comatose, Shizuo’s skin warmed itself with the touch of Izaya’s skin encircling his own.

 


	21. Gasoline

* * *

 

“How are we going to do this?” Izaya breathlessly asks as Shizuo’s knee presses in between his legs, the friction grinding under his arousal. He reached over to lock the bleached hair with his fist and to tug forward feeling Shizuo’s lips brush on his cheek and his knee sliding on the curve of his leg to press his hipbone to his own. He can feel the rapid breath the other takes on his windpipe, rushing through his chords and running down his throat with an unspeakable warmth that throbbed under his veins and Shizuo groaned at the question to blur the sounds on his skin with a closed-mouthed kiss on the curve of his clavicle as his hand trailed the shape of his spine to caress away the easing strain in Izaya’s wound. He strained his muscles to a rigidity that flexed his legs to push on the ground harder and determinant to hold himself on feet for Shizuo’s over-spilling heat.

 

“There’re horses in the stables.” Shizuo groans when he skims his lips along his neck to press his canines experimentally on his jaw and dig the tips in it to trail the curve with his tongue until Izaya shivered and claimed the sound of a moan to gush from inside-out.

 

“We can’t run away using that, there has to be someone looking for the horses.” Izaya taunts and angles his head to the side to bump into the wall behind and expose the curvature of his neck to Shizuo’s teeth that nibbled softly as to leave small bruises and barely visible slashes on the flesh around it.

 

“There was no one.” he says and pushes his fingertips in Izaya’s hip to feel the bone curve on his palm like steel.

 

“There’s _always_ someone.” Izaya said before his throat could sustain the tension to blow out the force of another groan deep inside his chords, to undulate itself around Shizuo’s own thudding of quickened heartbeat. Shizuo hums on his skin, slides his hand to linger above the hem of his waistband and pulls slowly. His forehead thuds on the crack of his shoulder to press his nose on the offering of bitter cologne and the thumping of his heart. _“Yeah..”_ Shizuo hums and holds the heat of Izaya under him like a glimmer of a firefly.

 

When he backs away and slides his fingers, Izaya can feel the loss hammering around his chords and trailing through his veins but he holds his hands by his sides and he reaches further to pivot his heels slightly unsteady on the ground as they round the corner to the aged stables. “We need a distraction.” Izaya says with the still-prominent shake in his voice and Shizuo almost laughs at the sound, almost pushes his hand through the air to tug it in his hair again and test the flexibility of his bending neck and throaty moan.

 

He doesn’t though, and he thinks it must be the pressure holding down on their shoulders and the urgency of their escape, until they catch the sight of the stables a little further up the hill and he strains his muscles so he’d walk in front with better stability and direction. “How are your legs?” he asks as Izaya shifts his head to the side as if it burned him.

 

“Good for now.” he relaxes and widens his fingers to push his hand in the small pocket-jeans. “Wished I had my coat though.” he pouts to which Shizuo huffs and turns to look straight ahead.

 

“I went in the cell before and brought them with me. They’re in the stables.” Shizuo reassures and Izaya tips his head to catch his curved spine. It’s then when he realizes that he’s not wearing anything differently, his clothes are the same, slight shady bartender uniform that clings to his skin like glued on every strain of his muscle. Only the hair seems combed for a better appearance, but Izaya can’t say Shizuo wasn’t good-looking with messier hair, when his hair would fall in waterfalls over his eyes to darken the shades of brown.

 

He thinks he looks better with messy hair. 

 

“Why don’t you wear any of those classic suits?” he asks in the end when he caught his breathing to a still-point. He dragged it on, breathing slow as the back of his knees buckled with a slow-building numbness. 

 

“’Cuz my brother has great tastes.” Shizuo answers as he swings the door to the wooden stables, flinging the aroma of fresh hay in their nostrils. “What now?” he asks and turns to grasp around his palm the big amount of hay to twirl them around and throw messily on the ground. Izaya watched Shizou, looking like a child trapped in the fantasy of childhood and he realized, the truth of it pickling on his hairlines, that Shizuo was exactly that--the embody of a child too quickly matured and with memories too short-lived from around the familiarity of his hometown. Shizuo threw the grass around with a calmed smile on his face, with the bruise of nail marks on his temple and the messy hair sticking at the edges from the ruffles of hard knuckles throughout it and Izaya would’ve been fortunate if the sight could’ve lasted longer. His gaze shifted at the sound of plastic, hitting the toes of Shizuo’s advancing foot. The echo clicked inside his mind to a clear-shaped idea.

 

“Gasoline.” Izaya says and cups his hands around the handle to bring it fully in Shizuo’s wondering gaze. “We’ll burn this place down.”

 

“Izaya--” Shizuo says as he lifts his arm to grasp around the other edge of the can but Izaya jerks it to himself and offers the widening of a boxy smile. 

 

“Don’t worry Shizuo-chan, just the stables. We take our horse and we flee out of here. Or you’d rather lift me and fly with your bat powers?”

 

Shizuo snorts the sound of a sudden bark from his throat. “Vampires can’t fucking _fly_.” Shizuo groans to Izaya’s giveaway of mockery spilling in his eyes and around his overall sadistic-inflected aura. “Just give me this.” he lounges for the handle before Izaya could skim it any further and opens up the cup to pour the liquid around, hearing the occasional slap and slurp. 

 

“We don’t need much, it’s going to burn indelibly with all this hay around.” Izaya says as he takes a black-night horse by the bridle and tugs it outside. “Really, who leaves gasoline in the--”

 

It’s a pain in the side what he feels first, and the roar of his name from Shizuo what he hears but it’s the thing that he sees which strikes him and curves his adrenaline back into complete motion. Shizuo grabs the man by the hair, pushing him in the wooden walls and hitting the heel of his boot in his ribs. The other’s blueish hair knocks over his forehead when his arms grope around his sides for a secondhand protection. Shizuo hisses then, and it reaches his ears like the screech of a hunting eagle and as Shizuo ducks under, the vampire holds tighter around the door in his back. He twisted his wrist to tug under the sleeve for the handle of a knife and Shizuo hits the bent of his elbow and cracks his arm with the force of the blow alone, leaving him to fall openly on the ground as Shizuo unbolted the can in hand to pour it all over the slight unconscious vampire, his body raising with the breathing in surrender, widening his legs for the imaginary stability that’ll stick to his muscles again. Izaya lifts himself on the elbows to view over with a better eye-position when Shizuo flicks his wrist to flare the lighter. He dropped it directly on the uncovered skin on his spine and watched the flames raising with speed boiling the extent of his flesh and spreading over to the trail of hays around. Izaya draws the bark of a laugh when he sees the peripheral tug of a smile creeping on his face.

 

 _“Shizuo!”_ he screams and his head turns at the sound, a murderous glimmer in his eyes that shades around the corners of his upper lip but he leans on his heels once he locks his gaze on Izaya’s own quivering one. Shizuo’s stable enough when he grabs around his arm to lift him bodily off the ground and swirl an arm around his shoulders. Izaya feels the new lengths of inquired fascination that orbits around Shizuo’s firsthand offering of strength unfolded, now pounded into his own blood like the burst of an unhealthy masochism.

 

They hear the screams way long after they entered the forest, when Izaya’s legs wobbled over the dangling horse’s moves to strain his muscles involuntarily and when the spreading poison took its course again. Izaya thuds his forehead on Shizuo’s back, not from his sleep-deprivation which Shizuo assumes it is, but from the pain stabbing in his lower half like the crush of a tree mangling his legs to flatness.

 


	22. Inflamed

* * *

 

Izaya can’t feel his legs when Shizuo drops him.

 

He tried to sustain his venom-inducted numbness to himself for the rest of their ride, his head pressed on Shizuo’s back as the sweat soaked into the hem of his white shirt but he drifted on the side once, his muscles bended painfully on the crock of his neck and when Shizuo shifted his head to angle Izaya’s in a better and cozier position, he flexed his fingers around his cold wrist and stopped at the touch, leaving the blood creeping with coldness on his fingertips as Izaya could only faintly hear his name being called out before he’s picked up bodily and laid on the wetness of ruffled and dumped leaves.

 

“You should’ve said something.” Shizuo offers. He lifts his eyes to the sight, blurred, that angles Shizuo’s hair higher and his chin longer in rectangular shapes. He feels the annoyance in Shizuo’s own voice when he lifts his head to try and catch the shining of his eyes but they’re as hidden as ever so when Izaya turns his arm is to reach over to his own face and grope at the skin to feel the structure of his bones sticking out and around, to swipe the lingering heat off his forehead and to dip his fingers above his lips for a weak salty taste from his dry skin. “You could’ve fainted right on me, what should we do?” Shizuo asked and it seemed as if he was genuinely worried, like the guilt swam to his veins at Izaya’s incapacity to function normally as if the tip of the knife was craved with his name rather than the roughness of the poison inside him.

 

“I’m not Shinra so therefore, I don’t know.” Izaya says through his shuddering breath weakened by the strained position of his neck as he tried to held it higher to rasp the words at least intentionally clearer. “You’re the one that lived in the basement.”

 

“I never _lived_ there, only stayed for a few hours once or twice a mouth.”

 

“That’s interesting. For how long?” Izaya asked and pushed his elbow to the slippery leaves in the back, realizing that the side-offered conversation eased his pain considerably until the shapes on Shizuo’s face could be viewed as clear as the stilled water.

 

“Maybe five months or more.” Shizuo responds and angles his legs to bent in front of his chest, to bring them flushed on his skin. He adjusted closer so his hip could bruise at Izaya’s side, could leave the mark of another skin, rubescent above the hem of his waistband and pressing harsher to broaden the heat in his veins.

 

“I’m surprised they haven’t found you. Or Celty, but it's easier for her to hide, right?”

 

Shizuo nodded as he clunked his head to the truck of the tree, leaving the stream of bitterness trail itself in his system when Izaya shifted at his side to lift his knee and drove a circular widening to Shizuo’s own legs. “She always hidden in her shadows, though…” he stopped to look over his shoulder into Izaya’s mob of dark hair, to whisper his huff into the locks and ruffle them around with the force and proximity of his breath. “How do you communicate with them now? Don’t you need them? Probably they’ll have something.”

 

“We don’t.” Izaya purrs when he pushes his chin into his upreared chest. “Hunters usually have partners, and if they need help they do it themselves. Alone is more of a suicide, but I always liked working alone.”

 

Shizuo snorts, and the power of the sound knocks Izaya in the head, leaving the uplifting pain to a stillness just above his ribs when Shizuo spreads his fingers in his hair and plays them around like chopsticks in the bowl of freshly cooked noodles. “Why is that?”

 

Izaya leans further so his head would thump on Shizuo’s lap to feel the curve of his hipbone firsthand and when he turns is to look upwards into the darkening sky above the branches and huff the exhale deeply pushed by his lungs that waved Shizuo’s falling hair slightly on his side. “I love humans but I sometimes bring up the innuendo of their  _good_ life.” he says and whatever Shizuo says after is blended by his sleep and soreness that plugged at his eardrums.

 

The next day, Izaya can’t move any of his limbs.

 

He feels like a dried vegetable, laid upwards and forgotten on the ground to decay and he shudders at the brush of Shizuo’s fingers above his skin. It’s as if Shizuo was the only one that could bring the reality back and around to him, locking him in place with just a wave of his fingers along his collarbone or through his hair and Izaya didn’t knew if he was disgusted or concupiscent. He liked the feeling of his fingertips on his skin, loved the strength he could apply on his side or on the curve of his cock but Shizuo was still the epiphany of his life, craved sharply with the presence of vampires creeping behind his back so Izaya tried to block the touch whenever it happened and lock himself away in the stillness. It never worked; Izaya liked the friction, the way his fingers would press on his veins to throb on the other’s skin and the shivers constantly on his hairlines at every pull of Shizuo’s hand. It was a welcomed addition to the tension and adrenaline which he felt with just the stroke of nails on his scalp.

 

“Maybe I’m the worst vampire you could’ve paired up with.” Shizuo said once as he trailed his fingers on his neck, bending to the side to stare at the flow within his main vessel. “I could crack your head with one pull.” he flexed them around, feeling the trembling under his fingertips at the loathing of _almost_ -crushing and Izaya felt his blood pumping under his skin faster as reminder of his flowing liquid under his paralyzed body. “Why aren’t you scared?”

 

Izaya laughed to angle his chin higher, feeling the breath on his own skin and the thumping of Shizuo’s own slight arousal throughout his fingers and when he spoke, he lifted his arm around the shadowy arch of his shoulders to pull him in closer and roughly so their noses would barely collide and Shizuo would almost loose his knee stability.

 

“I think you’ll leave behind the legacy of a psychotic criminal and that excites me.”

 

 


	23. Disquieting

* * *

 

 _“Fuck.”_ Shizuo breathes when Izaya hits the truck again, his neck illuminated by the sly lines of moonlight in curves of paler red on the edges. His mouth is hanging open as if he tries to say something, as if the words are boiled on the tip of his tongue and when Shizuo leans further he sees the dripping of saliva in the corner of his bottom lip, a small trail that shone of glittering and stickiness. “You’re going to _die_ like this.”

 

Izaya protests with a faint kick of his knee in the side of his ribs, trying to lift it to the space nearer and smack the bony leg to Shizuo’s skin but it slipped off and Izaya felt his mescke pull on his bone with a little more sharpness than the usual, constant itching. “I can’t die out of _this_ , don’t mock me Shizuo-chan.”

 

“I’m not mocking, Izaya, you’re fucking changing into a damned vegetable!” he said and groped around Izaya’s arm to tug at the skin in a painful pinch, the flesh brought upwards and around his fingertips as his elbow rose with only the brutality he exchanged into the wrench. “Can you feel this?”

 

Izaya grunted at Shizuo’s sharpness, trying to bring his arm back. He couldn’t even feel the twitch in his knuckles or the flex of his skin. “I think your monstruos expectations are way beyond me.” he says instead as Shizuo drops his clench so the arm would fall directly on his stomach, pulsing the sound around the incongruous air.

 

“Don’t change this to your own sadistic pleasures, Izaya.” Shizuo groans and throws his head on the back to gaze over the unblinking stars until his eyes would sting with the intensity with which he forces them open to a crepuscular light.

 

“I’m not.” Izaya says and it sounds strained and forced. “Just give it a few days.” but he knew the edge of danger was closer than the sound of a thunder followed by lighting, headlined into the lethality that curved its course through his blood vessels and throughout his muscles. If this was what Izaya thought, and the knife had been soaked into the generous amount of poison that was needed, he was sure that kind of toxicity would cause greater damage to himself rather than any vampire used on such experiments, and Izaya didn’t wanted to think about it--it was a subject exclusively for Shinra’s interest anyway--so he sucked-in the wheezing of another thudding breath. 

 

“A few _days_?! They could be on us right now and you tell me we should just stay?”

 

“I was assigned to find and kill the vampire, if they are, we have an opened opportunity to kill it.” Izaya says when Shizuo turns to look in his way, hovering above with the strength of his elbow on the side and his hair in waterfalls over his cheeks.

 

“Haruna is not going to be the only one. And don’t tell me you can take her on with your old-shaky knees.” he mocks and Izaya snorts at the sound of Shizuo’s amusement spilling securely into his tongue.

 

“Who says it’s old...” Izaya mumbles and he stretches his spine, feeling the itchiness on every inch of his skin and every pull of his muscle.

 

Shizuo hums on his side, the proximity being enclosed, Izaya can feel it ruffling through his hair and tickling the edge of his nape and when Shizuo leans in to press his dry lips on Izaya’s scalp, he grins in the sign of achievement just before Shizuo could wet his mouth with the tip of his tongue to let it slide easier on the swollen flesh. Izaya waits for it, the anticipation marking itself on his veins to thud in the emptiness of his reactive sense but Shizuo doesn’t kiss him, just pushes an arm around Izaya’s shoulders to tug him too forcefully on the tree again. 

 

“What the fuck?” Izaya said, blinking his eyes to give out the narrow of frustration. He could hear the tout of a little girl talking -- _“They’re there”-_ -as an older and sharper voice snapped to occlude all the other distractions offered by the low hum of Shizuo’s chords still purring on his skin.

 

“I thought we’re helping vampires, not _humans_.” the older said and Izaya already knew the lengths of her voice, the tonality always too stained and her honey-pouring sweetness too over-spilling. It was an insensible stroke, harsh to cause Shizuo’s arm off from his shoulders and when he looked up, the pink was egregiously enough to urticate under his eyes.

 

“Ah, Mika.” he taunted, “That’s a great surprise.”

 

“Hello Orihara.” she offers and leans for support on the truck nearer, her curves hidden by the over-large dress and hair tucked back under her pinkish hat; her eyes narrowed with the dark giveaway of bags under them looking vague into the straight-up direction. The unmistakable scar around her neck was contoured better and clearer above the curve of her décolletage. “Should we fear for another hunter attack?”

 

“You have enough of that from yakuza as I remember.” he wheezed out as Shizuo’s palm tightened on his side, harsher enough for him to actually feel it and Izaya turned just in time to catch Mika’s question on his eardrums;

 

“Akane says she saw you fainting, is that true?”

 

Izaya saw the questions in Shizuo’s eyes, felt his ears twitch at the sound of a little girl screaming in the far background but Shizuo looked at him and held all the attention to his glowing eyes so Izaya turned to press his shoulder blade painfully in Shizuo’s chest and lift his chin in at least an offering of high superiority. “Nonsense! I would need some water though, yes.” as Shizuo grunted and punched his side. 

 

“Who are those?” he growled lowly only for Izaya to hear. He shut himself down feeling the heat swarming in his back with the tug of Shizuo’s lips on his nape.

 

“We’re taking a trip to Saika’s clan, Shizuo-chan.” Izaya whispered when Mika asked softly something supposedly directed to an oblivious Shizuo. “Careful though.” Izaya said when Shizuo secured his shoulders under the bigger span of his palms, brushing the knots in his articulations to a bearable paraesthesia. “There’re a lot of kids.”

 


	24. Conceptualize

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, for anyone that still reads this story! I'm really sorry for not updating in such a long time; I've had some personal issues, and honestly I thought about dropping the work altogether. I'll try to work it out but if anything; I'm sorry

* * *

 

“You’re lucky.” Anri says when she swings the dumped towel from his forehead and pushes it through his hair. “Three days and you’re already on your feet. Wish Seiji could be as blessed as yourself.”

 

“He’s not _blessed_.” Shizuo groans from the back as he holds himself up to lean into his space, his fingers skimming over the closed-up wound with rough reflexes which Izaya could feel now pushing around his bones. “A few more days and he would’ve been dead and even have the nerve to do nothing about it.”

 

“Aren’t you happy I’m alive, Shizuo-chan?” Izaya asks when he turns around to lock his eyes on Shizuo’s but Shizuo was too inhibited to show any of his deep-rooted insights. His eyes were shadowed by the dim-lit candles and the glowing moon barely visible through the cracks of heavy curtains contoured his face in an almost demonic-like visual.

 

“No.” he says and it’s firm, serious and truthful, so much that it aches at his chest to hammer his heart around the flex of his chords, but. Izaya didn’t let any of it show outwards on the surface--he was always rather selfish, and letting the slight hurting show in the vermilion of his eyes was something Izaya blocked away even before the action could be shaped into his rationality. He brought a hand over his forehead and enlaced his fingers through his dumped hair.

 

It’s Anri who talks next, probably sensing the tension between them spreading around, or probably just wanting to provide an opening to a conversation pushed away in the lengths of three empty and nerve-wracking days: “You said the Dollars took you?”

 

Izaya looks through his falling hair at her; “Yeah. Do you know anything about the clan?”

 

“I do.” she sighs and taps the towel on the counter. “I know all their progression, especially now that yakuza works with them.”

 

Izaya hums and leans to press harder on Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo pushed his knees to thud on the wooden extent around the mattress and when he slides, the friction tumbles from his back and the heat looses to nothingness. Izaya shudders from the sudden cold. He’s not dependent on Shizuo, he tells that to himself. Shizuo doesn’t care, not truthfully; or probably he's not showing any with a stranger watching every action they do and every word they say. Izaya knows vampires aren’t meant to show their closed feelings and somehow it rebounds with the principle idea at hand: Izaya can’t feel the ordinarity of love. He knows the normality of love was shattered in his brain, and if that means that the feeling of a vampire’s teeth sinking into his flesh or the inhuman strength stroking over the head of his cock brings him pleasure, then Izaya allowed the sensation to flow throughout him--even if only for the warmth Shizuo’s fingertips erupt under his skin with such intensity it drives him crazy. “And I know Mikado personally.” Anri speaks further to halt Izaya’s thoughts to a minimum as she grabs around the towel to press her fingers into the still-wet material and flex it around her fingertips. “I’m afraid we don’t have each other on good terms.”

 

Izaya hums at the information, tugging his chin lower to catch the fall of Anri’s hair over her mouth and to shape her grimace on his own vision. She jerked away from his peripheral like the strings of his stare were bullets fired through her head--her shoulders diminished their arch to look like a single muscle. “Neither do we, don’t we Shizuo-chan?” to which Shizuo nearly smacked his hand across his back.

 

“I should go now.” Anri says after her gaze trails back to Shizuo’s and whatever she saw, Izaya thought as panic-stricken. She folded the towel around her arm and knocked on the edge of the counter-table. “I should go now. Goodnight.” she rushed before unlocking the hinge, skipping with speed rather than precaution over the threshold.

 

Izaya knew, somehow, that Shizuo’s blank stares could irk anyone into a horror-struck fit. He was just lucky to enlarge his adrenaline to a maximum.

 

“Do you always stare like that?” Izaya asks when the thudding power of a closed door shuts silently into their eardrums. “I know you’re a monster, but killing with your eyes is impossible, even for vampires.”

 

“I’m not trying to _kill_ her, god, _Izaya_! I just knew she’d speak about him again.” Shizuo huffed and dropped his weight onto the bed again, further and heavier than before. Izaya knew the butterfly-kisses and tender touches would blur away once his stability would take over again, when his vulnerability would shape around the usual outlines of roughness because it was something to be expected. Shizuo loathed for someone too damaged so he could pour over whomever it was the electric force of his deepest closed-in feelings and offer the offhand affection marked into his bones like a tattoo.

 

“Mikado?” Izaya asks and swings his legs over the mattress. He scratched at his spine, feeling the uniform crest under his toes. “I must say, I never expected him to be human.”

 

“ _Transformed_ human.” Shizuo groaned and Izaya thought the strain of his arm would knock into his knee, but Shizuo gripped around his ankle--too forcefully--and leveled his thumb up on his leg so Izaya would feel the shuddering in his muscles. “Who would ever want to live like _this_?”

 

“Whoever wants to be in the top of the food-chain.” Izaya purrs. When he digs his feet deeper, he feels Shizuo’s ribs curve on the exposure of his skin and through the material of his clothes, feeling the way Shizuo's fingers trembled around his ankle to tighten and pulse in the resilient restrain from wrenching his body closer. “Just imagine dreaming about drinking blood for the sake of unrequited love. Isn’t that really sad?” Izaya asks instead and leans over his shoulder to blow off the next words like wind over Shizuo’s ears. Shizuo squirmed from his hold but angled his head into Izaya’s mouth, feeling his wet lips brush over the temple. “Imagine if _I’d_ drink it.”

 

Shizuo groaned and snarled his head out of his reach, pushing the anger over his tongue as it emitted a loud hiss. He swung his arms off Izaya’s leg and tucked them painfully in his lap. “I’d rather not. You’d make an awful vampire for once.” Shizuo says and pushes his hand through his hair to lean in on his back, thudding over the mattress with one resonating thump.

 

“Why would that be?” Izaya asks as he swings his legs again over Shizuo’s waist to lock him in place. His hands followed the curve of Shizuo’s shoulders, pining his larger body under him so Izaya could lean onto his hips. The friction increased to a dull sound of skin-on-skin and murmurs as he’d muffle any incoming exhale of pleasure; “I’d certainly not kill as brutally as you do.”

 

“You’ll fucking twist their minds.” Shizuo snaps and when he jerks his head, Izaya leans closer to catch his cheek in his palm and feel the warmth from within drawing out at the touch. Shizuo backed away with the force in his neck strained to leave just the burning of Izaya’s fingertips implanted in his skin. “What is it Shizuo-chan?” Izaya asked even though he knew the meanings of it himself. He pushed onwards though, to hear Shizuo spill the words like venom from his mouth. “We’re alone again, it’s not as if you don’t _want_ it.” he moved closer to push his hipbone fully on Shizuo’s side and buck his legs to a tighter hold.

 

Shizuo breathed on his face, the smokes of air catching at Izaya’s lips with the offering of a nearly-there kiss, but Shizuo packed his lips instead of lifting his chin to Izaya’s mouth. He looked directly through Izaya’s lashes at the darkening, burning and lusting stare that haunted his vision. “Get off, Izaya.” Shizuo said instead with a colder tonality. He accentuated the nerves with the arch of his tongue over his canines and Izaya groaned in a deaden protesting as Shizuo’s arms closed around him to push rather than pull.

 

Their fingers were both hovering on each other’s skins, the shapes of their bones matched under the curves of their palms and Izaya could feel the striking of a slow arousal from the friction alone, from Shizuo’s fingers crushing his hipbones, but. It all stopped abruptly at the first roar and Izaya felt his blood run cold as the yells increased and enlarged, knocking their grunts away like a stab through the chest.

 


End file.
